I should be sleeping, but I'm up late lesson planning for the week and my head is spinning.
I love watching baby while he's sleeping, he looks so calm, and wise. Sometimes he even does a little smile like he's dreaming. Sometimes he furrows his little brows like he is deep in thought. Sometimes he pouts his little mouth. I never knew how much there was to know about babies and sleep until after we had a newborn in our arms and he was both always sleeping and somehow never sleeping at the same time. At around 2 months, in a casual middle of the night complaining to a parent friend with a child slightly older than Cal she told me that babies had wake windows and should be put down when we notice sleepy cues. She sent me a little chart from instagram and I tried it. Baby started rubbing his eyes, and his eyebrows turned red. I put him down and like magic, he fell asleep.
After that, I read about sleep hygiene, and wake windows, and eat/play/sleep, and sleep training, about sleep crutches, ABCs, safe sleep, and sleep training. As a teacher, I've been told stories of kids at age 7 who still had sleep crutches and parents who desperately wanted just a bit more sleep. I remember thinking, we have to put him down for every nap, so he can learn to self-sooth, to put himself to sleep, the sooner the better. John refused to do this and instead cuddled baby to sleep as much as possible. One day as he started to nod off in my arms, and I panicked about getting him to his crib, I thought about how tiny and adorable he was, and how snuggling and rocking the baby to sleep wouldn't last forever and decided just to let him fall asleep. I still put him down for naps most of the time, but if we happen to be cuddling and he starts falling asleep, I don't worry so much anymore. It's made life so much easier to just decide that sometimes baby will nap in his crib, and sometimes in our arms, or in the carseat, or in a carrier. Suddenly, I was able to have a little bit of a life.
Two months ago, the doctor told us that if we wanted to sleep train the baby, 4-6 months is the best and easiest time. But night nursing finally became easy (I don't nurse during the day) and I basically decided to ignore her advice. When things stop working, we'll figure out how to make a change then.
The other day baby woke up in the early morning to nurse and for whatever reason, didn't drift gently back to sleep, so I pretended that I was asleep. He seemed thoughtful, looking at me then gently put his hands on my face. He did this for a couple minutes then drifted back to sleep (thankfully) and I brought him back to the crib. I described to my husband how amazed I was that babies had the ability to decide to be gentle to not wake me.
The next day baby did the same dang thing (didn't nurse back to sleep), so I tried to pull the same trick by closing my eyes and watching through my lashes. Baby looked at me and proceeded to whack me in the face and poke my eyes. So, I guess day 1 was a fluke.
It was a week of poor night sleeping, waking up mid-night and not falling back to sleep, and the naps were tiny little things, and he would stay away way too late and then fuss from being overtired. I was just beginning to wonder if I was going to need to get used to him waking up at 5am and just starting his day then when suddenly, he slept till 8am again, then napped an hour and a half, and again and again. Going down got easier too. This morning I had to wake him up since it was 9am, and wake him after 2 hours of napping. He also rolled onto his tummy while napping for the first time today.
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