It seems that all blogs relating to babies eventually come to the sleep post. At 9 1/2 months, Ellie is a pretty bad sleeper. And I think I have only myself to blame for this. I also think the set-up of our house complicates things. We have three bedrooms and presently use the third bedroom as our guest room (the room that should really be Ellie’s). Ellie’s crib is in our bedroom. In an ideal world I would have Leo and Ellie share a room but I just don’t think Leo is ready for this. To be honest, I don’t trust him alone with Ellie. I have always been afraid to really let Ellie cry, for fear it will wake Leo, who is a fairly good sleeper. But I think I have come to the point where I need to let her cry. Otherwise, I am going to be the one bawling. I need some sleep. I need more than three-four hours at a time. I mean, she’s nine months old. Is that too much to ask?
A typical night goes like this:
-9-10pm: Nurse to sleep. Usually takes about an hour. Carefully deposit her in crib. Soothe with back-rub if fussy. If she wakes, nurse again. In short, nurse her to sleep. I know, that's my first problem right there.
-Wakes sometime between 1-3am to nurse. Falls right back to sleep. Again, carefully deposit in crib.
-Often wakes again around 5:30 am to nurse.
See what I mean folks? This is the pattern of maybe a 3 month old. And it wouldn't be so awful if I could fall right back to sleep each time she wakes, but I often cannot. My mind starts to wander. And race. And I hear her every wimper.
That third bedroom is our guest room. It’s also right next door to Leo’s. If I let her cry in that room, will it wake Leo? The only way to find out is if we move the crib and just try it It's an ideal guest room because it has its own bathroom. We don’t have a lot of houseguests but when we do, it’s so nice to just put them in there. However, we do also have a lovely finished basement with a perfectly decent bathroom that can serve as a guest room. Oh the permutations are dizzying.
I think there is a part of me that is also resisting putting Ellie in her own room because somehow that signals she’s not a newborn anymore. Yes, I’ll admit it. As much as I want sleep, I don’t really want to “cut the cord” just yet. I know I’m being ridiculous. It’s not like she’s getting her own apartment. But there it is. As much as I treasure sleeping without her in the bed, I can’t say there is anything sweeter than waking up to her soft little breath and sweet mouth. I love watching her sleep. I love the way her little lips part just slightly, how she sticks her bottom up in the air (why do babies almost universally sleep this way?). As a newborn she practically slept in my arm pit. It took almost a month of me sitting up and nursing her to realize that if I just side nursed her in the bed, we could both sleep. And then we created a bit of a co-sleeping monster. For a while she would only sleep in our bed. She needed the feeling of another body next to hers. The second her body hit the Pack N Play her eyes would open and the wailing would begin. By default, we started co-sleeping. I guess I should be grateful that she sleep in the crib at all, but she is too old to be nursing to sleep.
And as much as I want to move her, there is this other part of me that thinks, big deal. So you’re not sleeping that much. As my own mother might say (as she was known to say in trying times, “this too shall pass.”) These baby days, these so called “hard” times, they are so short lived, in the grand scheme. And for all the difficulties there is so much joy.
And now, as I drone on and on, I am boring even myself with this posting. In theory, I like the idea of “crying it out” (CIO for those of you in the know) but I hate the idea of her being so upset. I also want her to learn to soothe herself, to put herself to sleep and wonder how that is possible if you don’t CIO (by the way we let Leo CIO and it worked wonders). I guess the next step is to move the crib at least OUT OF OUR BEDROOM (gee, that would be progress, wouldn’t it?), and figure out how the whole downstairs guest room thing will work. I make it sound like we are overcome with guests on a weekly basis. We’re not but I want the guests we do have to be comfortable. And I want Leo to not be woken up by Ellie. And I want to sleep for 5-6 hours straight. Again I wonder, is that too much to ask?
Pictured above, my little sleeping Ellie (sadly I didn’t act fast enough to catch the beloved bottom in the air pose). She looks so comfortable on our $3,000 mattress (don’t ask).
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