This Is How I MomSolving the puzzle of motherhood one piece at a time

Logan has been sleeping elevated since he was a newborn. Back then, he seemed to sleep the best (and longest) in his rock’n'play sleeper, so we just kind of.. stuck with it. We’ve made several attempts to get him into his crib since, but they always failed. I think several factors played into that. For one, the crib was in his own bedroom, but he wasn’t really used to his bedroom. We’d go in there when he was already asleep or close to asleep, and he never got a chance to get comfy with it. Obviously, the elevation change takes a lot of getting used to as well. So, previous attempts to get him into his crib ultimately ended in hours and hours of crying sessions. We got a 40-minute stretch of sleep out of him, once.

So, through a combination of laziness and busy life, Logan’s been sleeping in his rock’n'play that he has long outgrown. I’ve been thinking that some of his sleep issues have to do with him no longer liking to sleep in it. Two nights ago, little man started wailing loudly out of the blue at about 8pm. I went upstairs just to find him on his tummy. In the rock’n'play. Not good. Not comfy for him, either. Or safe, for that matter.

That was the last straw. We set up the crib the day after, and last night was Logan’s first night in his crib. I want to say it went.. better than expected. I put two blankets under his mattress to help with the elevation change. At 7:40pm, after giving him his bottle, he pulled his lovie over his face and just kind of passed out without further complaint.

At 9pm, he woke up. Not unhappily at first, but eventually disoriented and unhappy about his change in circumstances. I was there to help him, giving him a little more milk, rubbing his tummy, but to no avail. Then, out of the blue, he figured out he can roll on his tummy. Cue instant sleep.

Dumbfounded, I went back downstairs. He slept until 12:30am (!), which is much longer than usual. However, at about 12:30am we hit a rough stretch where Logan was pretty convinced that it was in fact play time and not sleep time. He fell asleep once but woke back up quickly, and we did the whole spiel again. The whole thing lasted til about 3:30am. But, what baffles me is that he was not actually upset, he was just exploring.

He then continued to sleep til 5:20am.

On the whole, I was expecting much worse. I obviously was not happy about the 3-hour awake stretch, but I’m sure that once he really gets used to the crib, that won’t be an issue anymore. I am happy we finally took the plunge, since it’s been something I’ve put off for too long.

On an unrelated note, we also have… teeth! The two bottom front teeth came in, and little guy now has an actual chomp. He’s pretty fascinated by his new acquisitions, while I’m kind of scared of putting my fingers anywhere near his mouth now. Terrible picture – he doesn’t exactly let me get too close to them – but here you have ‘em.

Daytime is becoming really, really fun. Little guy has a blast exploring and playing and I only wish we had more nice summer days so we could go outside more. On the few occasions that it doesn’t rain, we’ve been making good use of the sun.

We’ve had some adventures in big boy land. We will stick to attempting to feed Logan solids, since his wake-up time keeps moving backwards and he’s starting to have night wakings for hunger again. It might just be a growth spurt since he’s eating like a truck in general, but time will tell!

I’ve also decided I need to be a little more vigilant about crib sleeping, so yesterday we embarked on an adventure. Since he doesn’t usually sleep in his own big boy room, it’s a completely different environment for him and I could understand his reluctance to want to sleep in his crib. He fussed for about 40 minutes while I tried to soothe him to sleep with minimal picking-him-up-moments, and then he just completely passed out.

We decided that once he wakes up from crib sleep, we’ll put him back down to sleep in his usual place – baby steps! I didn’t want to press the crib on him all night when I know he’s already going to be scared and lonely up there. But I’m happy to report that he did sleep for an hour in his crib. I’m going to keep putting him down in it and hope that eventually he’ll regard it as normal and wake up less (or put himself back to sleep).

My husband watched the whole 40-minute ordeal on the baby monitor and congratulated me when I came downstairs. “You’re SO patient!” I didn’t actually feel like I was, I really just didn’t want to give up on it again when I know he was really close to falling asleep. I was rewarded with this sweet sight:

And I have to say – even though we’re doing baby steps – I felt accomplished. I’m aiming to have him sleep in his crib for good by the time he’s 5 or 6 months old. I’m also very glad he wasn’t mad at me this morning, because my happy boy makes me feel so blessed to be his mother.

I love him.