Little Houdini.
Logans' sleeping habits are driving me nuts! He's not sleeping through the night at all & quite frankly, I've given up on the idea. We went to the chiropractor yesterday & their massage therapist has a 4 month old as well. She asked about how many times he gets up. "On a bad night, like this week. Six. On a good night. Three." She told me to start feeing him solids. Um, hello? I've never met you before & you don't know that he has food sensitivities already. Thanks for trying to be his pediatrician. Besides, giving him solids isn't going to guarantee he'll sleep through the night. Plus, I think it's very selfish to feed him solids before he's ready just so I can sleep more. Lack of sleep is part of the deal when you have a baby. So is sacrifice.

I told her that he won't start solids for a while & she asked what I was feeding him. "He's exclusively breast fed". She then looked me up & down like, "really?" Now, I know people are going to give advice wether I like it or not. Usually it doesn't bother me. But for some reason, I wanted to punch this lady. I felt like this because: A. She's telling me something I already know. And: B. Don't look at me like breast feeding is bad. It's a good thing I kept my mouth shut, or we wouldn't have been allowed back to the office.

Logans' sleeping schedule has been getting better though. His bedtime is 8 pm & we're usually on top of it unless I've lost track of time because we're focused on rolling over. His naps are more scheduled now at 10 am & between 3 & 4 pm, respectively. His naps are short though, only sleeping for 20-30 minutes. In a miracle sleep, sometimes he'll stay down for an hour. But again, this is a miracle. He's sleeping in his crib all of the time, except for the couple of times that I let him fall asleep in his Boppy chair on the futon. For the most part he wakes up happy & ready to play. I know he's awake because I can hear him kicking the mattress instead of crying. The problems are happening when he's getting to sleep.

At night, I'll get him dressed, read him a story or two & sing him a few lullabies. Occasionally (much less often now than in the past weeks) he'll realize what's going on when I start to sing & he freaks out. He's been better about this though. Once he's calm, relaxed & drowsy but awake; I'll put him down, giving him his binky & swaddling him. This is where I'm at a loss.

I swaddle him because he always has his hands in his mouth & when he's trying to get to sleep, he gets frustrated that his hands are there & not his binky. So essentially, I use the swaddle like a baby straight jacket that keeps his hands down & his binky in his mouth. He's so freaking strong though it doesn't matter how tight I swaddle him, he still gets out. This process of swaddle, leave & then hear him cry, swaddle, leave & a few minutes later....crying; goes on for 30 minutes. He eventually falls asleep in his swaddle & stays that way until about 9:30-12:00, sometimes until 1 or 2 am.

He's pretty good in the middle of the night after he's nursed. He'll wake up at 2 or 3 am to eat, then I get him swaddled again. It seems he has an automatic response to grabbing his feet when he's on his back, so I have to straighten his legs while getting his arms down & trying to wrap him at the same time. On a bad night, he'll wake up 30 minutes later because he's escaped. So then the process starts all over again. There are times now that I just let him cry it out. If he's fed, changed & just being a little Houdini, I'll let him cry until he either gets hysterical or he's been crying for 20-30 minutes.

He wakes up again somewhere between 5 & 6 am & won't go back to bed. He's usually awake & ready to start the day, but I'm not even close to coming out of my sleep deprived coma. This is when I nurse him & co-sleep in the guest bedroom, where once we are cuddled up together, he will go back to bed. He'll stay asleep until 8 am or, if he wants to sleep in, 10 am. Then the escape artistry will happen at nap time as well.

His sleeping habits are really testing my patients. I'm starting to wonder if they really make baby straight jackets, because this seems like the only solution at this point. I figured that I would stop swaddling him when he's not shoving his hands in his mouth & when he's totally mobile (because he's not rolling over in his crib yet & I thought it was recommended that he continues to be swaddled until he's moving around in there). I told Bill that I really don't know what to do at this point & if he continues to be like this, I'm going to duct tape his hands to his sides (I'm kidding. sort of).