Wow, mobility really changes things. M is now mobile in all ways except walking. He proved this two nights ago, when he woke up and Sacha went in to comfort him...and found him sitting up on the opposite end of his crib that he started from, crying his little eyes out. He had gotten up (presumably by rolling over, crawling to the other side of the crib, and then pushing himself to a sitting position) and didn't know how to get back down. So cute! But oh my gosh, it has abruptly changed his sleeping habits.
We've been doing really, really well with sleep lately. Mateo goes down in 5-10 minutes most of the time for naps and at night. He's sleeping well and getting up once or twice a night to nurse. Every so often he has a rough night and even after our very soothing routine still takes 20 or 30 minutes to get himself to sleep...but that's pretty rare and overall, we consider the sleep situation to be fabulous. Fabulous!, as my mom would say, in a high-pitched voice (hi Mom!).
Unfortunately, Mateo's awesome new mobility has gotten him all turned around in the sleep department. We thought it was adorable when Sacha went in and found him sitting up at naptime. How cute, we thought. He's confused but will figure it out, we thought. It got less amusing as yesterday progressed and nearly every time we went to check on him at naptime, he was either sitting, in a crawling position, or standing at the railing of his crib.
Then, at bedtime, things completely deteriorated and every time we went in (at ten-minute intervals), he was up in some fashion and upset about it. We would calmly lie him back down, shush him, insert the binky and leave...and pretty soon he'd be up again! After an hour and a half of this, he finally went to sleep. Ugh. I know that he'll learn how to get to sleep again pretty soon and everything will be smooth for awhile...but we're all a little bit frustrated to have our old nemesis, the going-to-sleep monster, rear its ugly head!
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In other (happier) news, we went to our baby-and-me group today and Mateo quickly charmed a group of visiting Japanese midwifery students! We confused them at first, apparently, which we realized after one of them repeatedly asked me if I was the baby's brother? His father? I had just gotten what must have been a rather confusing haircut.
However, once we crossed that hurdle, things went much better. After our little social butterfly visited most of the other parent/child combos around the circle, he crawled up to the Japanese midwives and boy, did they love him. I looked over at one point to see him having a great time in the middle of a circle of five of them. It was so funny and cute. Almost as cute as at the end, when they took a couple of group photos with him. I gave one of them my email address and am crossing my fingers that they send me the photos so I can post them. Apparently, Mateo loves Japan and its citizens love him right back.
1 comment:
I just want to sympathise with you on the sleep thing. Our little guy, too, went from falling asleep happily on his own to taking an hour and a half to settle at night. It's the same reason, too... he just can't stop scooting around and sitting up, or even pulling himself up on his crib railing. The last couple of nights I've helped him regulate his body movement, letting him get some wiggles out to settle down and then hugging/rocking him to settle him the rest of the way down. Then I lay him down and if he starts to roll over (the beginning of getting up on all fours which can lead to sitting or even standing up) then I hold his hip gently to keep him on his side, and eventually, he'll fall asleep. It's much more high maintenance but it's better to get bed time overwith in 30 mins than an hour and 30. Best of luck to you guys... it's so hard for them when they're learning so much in a short time!
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