To Sleep or Not To Sleep

What is it about sleeping that we cannot stop talking about it? Or is it just me?! It is the main topic of any conversation, even when you don't even know the mom/dad: "You have a lovely baby, how does she sleep?". You just want to know if they are as sleep deprived as you are, and if they are not, you desperately want to know why? how? when? how?!? what? HOW?!?! . 

So it begins, the search for that mysterious recipe or knowledge that will bring back the full night of sleep (or at least more than three straight hours) that you desperately need... The Holy Grail of Sleep. 

I talked to everybody and tried everything they suggested, but for me it only got better when I learnt to roll with it. As soon as I stop fighting him and the fact that he didn't sleep more than two hours at a time, and fighting the fact that I had to be awake at night, then it got easy. 

Here is the list of all the things I tried to get him to sleep... with very little or no success whatsoever... 

1. Warm room: it got too warm so he couldn't sleep

2. Cool room: it got too cold so he woke up

3. Less naps during the day: almost impossible and super grumpy baby

4. Eat as much as possible during the day: only help him to put on weight, loads!

5. Bath him before bedtime

6. Massage him before bed

7. Wearing a plain sleeping suit: apparently one with prints got him too excited to sleep

8. Put a warm water bottle in his bed to warm his spot up before laying him down

9. Have the mattress on an incline

10. With the hair dryer on

11. With the vacuum cleaner on (all night long!)

12. With the white noise app on (he preferred the real sound from the vacuum cleaner)

13. In the car seat while driving him around the neighborhood 

14. In the car seat in the bedroom

15. Swaddle: he spent more time awake trying to break free than actually sleeping

16. With a sleeping bag

17. On the baby sling

18. With my hand on his chest: which meant I slept on the floor

19. In bed with us: I was too worried about rolling over so this didn't work

20. With the dummy: he spit it out and cried for it more times that I can count

21. Trying to reason with him: we are not fluent on "baby language" so it didn't work

22. Pray: all the Gods from all religions were off duty that day

23. With my mom, in the spare bedroom: Best. thing. ever. She didn't mind being awake in the middle of the night, and it gave us 3 solid hours of sleep 

Have you tried any other way to get your baby to sleep longer?

Dummy: Love or Hate?

I find myself in a love-hate relationship at the moment with the dummy. It makes my life easier in some desperate moments, but equally terribly miserable some other times. Let me explain to you why...

It all started a couple of weeks after he was born, in one of those nights when there was nothing I could do to stop him crying. 

Even before I had him I knew I wasn't going to be one of those moms, you know, the ones that use the dummy as a cork to quiet my boy. I would totally understand what he needed and calmly work things out with him. No way; no child of mine would ever use it, ever I say! How deluded was I?! 

So on that particular night I found it, hidden away between the toys on the shelf, the dummy I got as a present and I promised never to use. 

I was desperate, I would have even accepted an exorcism if it meant it would make him stop crying. So I crumbled and gave it to him, and it was love at first sight! Suddenly the room was quiet, and I could here the snoring of my husband (over the ringing of my ears). And so it began... 

Sometimes I gave it to him to make him fall asleep, sometimes he would spit it out and I knew he was hungry. It was my safety blanket when out and about because I knew if things got out of control I would stop all the looks from other customers at the coffee shop with it. The dummy made everything better. It was magic... It was love! 

But then, without me even realising it, it got out of control! I would use it every time all the time, and my baby would ask for it all the time too! I couldn't, for the love of me, make him go to sleep without it.

And then it started... The hate. 

He would wake up at night crying for it. He wasn't hungry or needing a nappy change, he just didn't know how to go back to sleep without it. I would give it to him, he would then go back to sleep and I would go back to bed only to hear it falling from his mouth and knowing I would have to get up again, and again... And again...

I used to play with the idea that I had mental powers. That if I thought about it strong enough the dummy would stay in his mouth for another 20 minutes but it would never work. 

Now here I am, at 4am in bed after I have given him the dummy, knowing that I will have to go to his room soon because I have heard it fall; hoping that he will grow out of it so don't have to go through the "letting him cry himself to sleep" tactic... 

So let me ask you, is it Love or is it Hate?