You’re feeling sleeeepppyyyy…

I’m sleep deprived.

That’s not a big shocker is it really? I suppose the bigger shock is that I really shouldn’t be. Since baby was 2 months old she’s slept through the night… 9 hours regularly and sometimes 12. True, this has changed in the last week as the dreaded sleep regression has hit, but it’s not that bad yet. She’s sleeping less during the day and waking once at night. After she woke at 3am last night, it took 15 mins to get her back down… that’s hardly something to complain about.

In my defence, she’s not a quiet sleeper, she moves alot and there are nights, like last night, where I spend the whole time lightly holding her hand while I also, supposedly, sleep. This seems to help her stay rested. It’s not hugely comfortable but it’s darned easier than bed sharing, which I have found essential at times, but really quite painful for the joints.

My problem is that I fall asleep fine, but once I’m disturbed, any time from about midnight, that’s it. I’m awake. I can get drifts of sleep back, but nothing solid. Last night I woke at 3 and that was pretty much it. The night before it was 2.30…last week, 1.45. It means I’m exhausted, but for the life of me I can’t work out how to solve it short of moving her to her own room, and I don’t feel she’s quite ready for that yet.

So what am I doing? Well, currently I’m downing life-saving espresso at a coffee shop while she naps in her pram. She always sleeps better in here than anywhere else. An early caffeine addict obviously.

The other thing I’m doing is reading and researching furiously to come up with a plan. I’m a planner… I’ve often been accused of peddling organised fun (trust me, I organise the BEST fun). In other words, for most of life’s decisions, great or small, I need to read about every option available before choosing a route. The big issue here is that the volumes of information out there about baby sleep are huge and varying. Some of it seems to make sense, then I read something else that throws it out of the window. Do I sleep train, try to break her sleep reliances, and put her down drowsy but awake? I’ve never once managed to get her to sleep this way, so if take that path it could be a long one. Right now she feeds to sleep a couple of times a day, naps in the car (after a heap of screaming), and is bounced to bed in the Bjorn carrier by Husband each evening. She sleeps well in the pram if pushed about for a while but that’s not a realistic evening option.

Alternatively, do I instead say, screw it, and carry on as I always have? After all, if she was sleeping through before, does that in fact, mean she can already self-settle and I just haven’t realised it??

It’s this word ‘self-settle’ that’s causing most of my figurative headaches. I simply don’t know if she already can or not. Part of this is caused by the old premature issue (is that an oxymoron?). Is she four months or five months old? Do I need to adjust to her due date?

Bare with me here.

Around four months, so I’m reading, sleep patterns in babies change. They stop sleeping lightly and coasting between sleep cycles, and start sleeping deeper, waking fully between each 45 minute-ish turn. This is something we adults do too (so if I can’t sleep, perhaps I needed to teach myself as well). If she hasn’t yet learned to self-settle and has been sleeping well because she was coasting, I could soon be in for a whole heap of hourly pain each night. HOWEVER if she’s five months, and has been sleeping well, chances are she HAS already learned, in which case, making changes now might muck everything up and send things into a spiral.

So which is it!! I’m not-literally shaking you reader and asking… which is it???!!

After days of chewing on this, I am choosing a halfway house of getting her to have stronger bedtime associations, and waiting and seeing. She’s always had a bedtime routine which means she’s gone down 8.30 most nights, that’s worked well. Now though, I hope to start putting her down (not letting her suckle and sleep on me) for daytime naps. I’ve begun to introduce a ‘lovey’ and I intend to put her in a sleeping bag for bedtime from next week. It’s Easter holidays which means extra nighttime support from Husband – thank the powers that be! While she flat out refused swaddling and bags when she was smaller, I tried one for a nap this week and she seemed to take it quite well, though she only slept for 34 minutes total. My eventual goal is for one of these things to become her sleep transition item. Another term that’s become drilled into my aching head. It just seems a shame the lovey can’t stay in bed with her yet because of the suffocation risk.

On that point… does anyone know when I can leave the little blanket lovey in bed with her? I’m seeing a lot of mixed information on that point as well. It’s crazy how many of these lovely snuggly things we were given as gifts when she was first born… I’ve previously given them to people myself… but I had no idea they couldn’t be used for the first few months of a baby’s life!

The other thing I’m trying to do is work on a proper, but flexible, nap schedule. She’s always slept for hours during the day, but now that’s ending, I’m actually finding her naps are really short, often just half an hour. I wasn’t too concerned until yet another article said this was a terrible thing and meant she wasn’t getting enough rest. Moreover, these short sleeps are supposedly a big indicator that she can’t, there’s that word again, ‘self-settle’. Hence why I’m at that coffee shop, because here I can gaurentee a good two hours of napping loveliness. I wonder if they’ll let me move in??

Anyway, back to the original point. I’m sleep deprived, but not really because of the baby, because of me. Ive tried keeping my phone off, tried meditation to get back to sleep, different lying positions, white noise, the lot. It seems my brain, once activated, is so poised and ready for her to wake, that it refuses to relax. It’s like I’m telling myself it will be worse if I sleep and she then wakes me again. If I’m already awake, it whispers, then no harm done. I’ve stopped drinking caffeine in the afternoon I’ve cut back on TV time, so far to no avail. Any sleep experts out there with a suggestion, step forwards please.

Right. It’s 14.05, she’s been asleep nearly two hours. From what I read I shouldnt really see her go beyond two hours as that means she’s asleep because she’s exhausted, then again, I shouldn’t ever wake a sleeping baby, should I? I guess I’ll head back home and, without a doubt, the familiar smell of the house will arouse her in seconds.