Well, we've had an interesting couple of days with Andrew and his sleeping habits. Most evenings between about 6pm and 11pm Andrew can be quite unsettled and grumpy. He doesn't know what he wants - food, sleep, cuddles - who knows! But this is normal apparently. Sometimes he can cry on and off for hours and I've gotten used to it, but sometimes it stresses Daniel out as he doesn't know what to do. I've worked out that Andrew calms down as long as he's distracted. So that means lots of walking around the house until he gets sleepy and then attempting to put him to bed. He quite often falls asleep in my arms but then as soon as I put him in bed is wide awake again. This is when I break out the dummy and hold it in his mouth with one hand (he spits it our accidentally and gets upset if I don't) and pat his chest with the other. I've been known to do this for up to a couple of hours some nights. Sometimes he falls asleep but after 10 minutes can wake up again so I have to go back in and keep patting.
Saturday night was one of these nights. I think it started at about 6ish and he was tired but after putting him down and letting him cry for a while he was getting too worked up and stressed so I got him up again. He calmed for a while as we walked around and changed his nappy and I gave him a feed a bit later to see if that would help him fall asleep. It did, so I held him a while to make sure he really went to sleep. Then at about 8pm I attempted to put him to bed but he woke up too much when I was swaddling him so started crying again. I did the dummy/patting thing and he calmed down but wasn't closing his eyes. I sat there for about an hour I think and he was sleepy but he wasn't quite asleep. My arms and back were so sore by then and I was hungry so I left him and crossed my fingers. I had a bit of a cry then as I was so tired and achy and Daniel gave me cuddles and I felt a bit better. Daniel heated up my dinner (left-overs from the night before) and while I was eating Andrew started crying full-on again. I finished dinner and went back in and got him up for a while. Changed the nappy and played a bit then, as he started getting grumpy again, gave him another feed. Burps and then back to bed. More dummy/patting until about 10.15 when he finally fell asleep and didn't wake when the dummy came out. By this time I'm absolutely shattered and went straight to bed. Daniel had had a snooze in the afternoon but I'd only had 10 minutes before Andrew woke up and wanted a feed. (This was my own fault really as he'd been asleep for a while but I'd been busy doing stuff like washing and tidying as I knew it was probably only going to be a short nap for Andrew.) I think I was asleep almost immediately and didn't stir once when Daniel came in a hour or so later.
The good thing about all this was that Andrew didn't wake up until 3.45am, which was one of his longest sleeps ever! I realised that he probably only woke up even then because he'd managed to get himself almost entirely uncovered and was cold. I got Daniel up after I'd fed Andrew because I had the sheets on wrong and couldn't tuck them in enough to hold him down. Poor Daniel was half asleep fixing the sheets and finding a big enough blanket to tuck in width ways. We eventually found a great flanelette sheet which in this weather is perfect. Just enough extra warmth on top of a normal sheet for most of the time and we can put over a warmer blanket in the middle of the night. As Andrew was awake through all of this I sent Daniel back to bed and gave Andrew another feed to settle him down. After a burp he went back down again and with a couple of pats and no dummy went straight to sleep. By this time it was about 4.15am but he didn't wake up until 8.45am! I woke up at about 8.15am and went to check on him as I couldn't believe he was still asleep.
So after all that effort during the evening it was totally worth it when he had 2 long sleeps.
But that's not all! He did much the same evening procedure last night but started later as we'd been down the coast during the day. It wasn't quite as bad as the night before but it meant that he didn't settle until just after midnight. But
then he didn't wake up until 5.30am! Amazing! Then he went straight back to sleep after a feed until 9.10am! The worst thing about last night was that I couldn't sleep properly! I tossed and turned all night waiting for him to wake up! I was up at 4am and went in to check he was ok and get a drink then he stirred at about 7.30 as Daniel was leaving so I got up expecting Andrew to demand a feed any minute but he put himself back to sleep.
I think the fact he is sleeping longer now has got a lot to do with temperature and getting used to his bed and keeping him tucked in. I feel confident that I will be getting longer sleeps very soon. Then we'll go to Tassie and everything will probably get mucked up ;-)
