Here are a couple of pictures from yesterday...cutie pie!
And here's a picture from today...sleep!
There's a story behind this last picture. Doesn't he look cozy? Asher has not been napping easily, if at all. Did I mention that already? :) I spend most of the day trying to get him to sleep lately, and it mostly goes like...get him sleepy, hold til good and deeply asleep (or put him down sleepy, same result either way), put down, get at MOST 15 minutes of sleep before crying ensues, attempt to lengthen nap by same method, get same result. The process never really ends. I mean, when do you really stop and just let him be up for a while when you've been doing this for an hour and a half and he's only gotten 1 or two catches of a few minutes each? He's grumpy if he's up, so you try again, eventually feed him, and suddenly you've been doing it all day. You can imagine how the two year old loves the utter boredom of being shooed out of the way during his mother's desperate battle to get the baby a nap. I am totally drained. I know I'm not handling this right somehow, but I haven't known what else to do as the days tick by. I'm planning on letting him cry as needed for naps between 12 and 16 weeks (book and sleep doula advice), but it's a long way from 8.5 to 12 weeks :P I tried some crying anyway, but I can tell it's a bit too early.
I've been somewhat against using a swing. I know a lot of people whose kids get addicted to them, and they use them for a long time--til the baby grows out of it--and then they have problems not having other ways to get the baby to sleep, and the baby is still not self-soothing. Also, my fave sleep book cautions that they don't really get restful sleep while moving, and to stop the swing after the baby falls asleep. Furthermore, how does it help a baby to sleep in his crib ultimately if you have him in a swing all the time? Well, I got desperate so I tried our swing anyway. He HATES it. He just cries, cries, cries. Same as Owen.
I went to my mom's program at church last week and dropped off Asher for the first time with all the grannies in the infant nursery.
Me: 'This one doesn't nap. Anything you can do to try to get him to sleep is appreciated!'
Them: [nodding heads at still-rookie mom] 'Sure. Is he your first?'
Me: 'No! I should know what I'm doing, shouldn't I?'
Them: 'Oh, don't worry about him. Go have fun.'
Me: [to myself] They'll see. He doesn't sleep!
Upon returning to nurse him, he was fast asleep in a swing :P Of course! Upon returning to pick him up...still asleep. He slept for 2.5 hrs! It was a side-to-side swing instead of front-to-back, and they left it going the whole time.
Within 24 hours I have purchased said swing from the online classifieds, and Asher slept in it all day. I am PETRIFIED about what habit I am breeding, but how can I go back?? I have so much freedom. It's like he is physically unable to stay awake when he is in it. I see him blink wide-eyed awake just like he does in my arms or the bassinet, but as it continues swinging, his little eyes lull back closed.
What scares me is that when he got out of it for some awake time today, he was *super* grumpy every time, and he almost never is. Why? Didn't he just get some sleep finally? Maybe he got enough sleep to realize how tired he is. Or maybe his brain got so used to the soothing motion that he started missing it even when awake. Also, as soon as I stop the motor, he jerks awake crying. That's not a good sign! I hope when I make the change at 12 to 16 weeks it won't make it incredibly more painful for him. I hope I'll be brave enough to go ahead and stop using it then since I know that it's better to teach him to nap in the crib earlier than later. It will be a whole lot easier to put him in a swing with no crying than in a crib and listen to him suffer. Ack! Maybe I'm being way too uptight. A friend of mine (who incidentally recommended this particular swing to me early on, but did I listen??) says that when they outgrow the swing they outgrow the need for it, so not to worry about using it even long-term. I'm still scared of that.
What do the readers think about swings? I'll value your opinion more if you've actually had experience using them and transitioning out of them :)
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