Maxwell Has healed so quickly from his surgery! After just two weeks the catheter is out, the incisions are closed and stitches dissolved. The extra care needed the last two weeks was mostly time consuming but felt like a huge effort...just having the catheter out has relieved so much of the work! It is absolutely amazing how fast their little bodies heal...and how slow the scratch across the bridge of my nose, made by sharp baby talons, is healing. Those miniature razor blades at the tips of my son's fingers grow in spurts. All is fine then I need to trim the nails every day or everyone gets stinging scratches. Ouch!
It is also amazing how many skills Maxwell has mastered this week. It seems like he does not like to do anything until he can do it perfectly. He has been sitting with assistance, rolling on to his side and half-heartedly reaching for objects for weeks if not months. The poor lil' guy decided one night to roll all the way over shortly after his surgery...there was lots of crying! Some of the tears from surprise (half asleep and shock) and many more from pain in his boy bits. A rude awakening for sure! During M's twice a day soaks for comfort a dissolving his stitches, he mastered sitting up on his own and lunging for his bath toys. Bath time also got a whole lot interesting with the kicking of feet and hand splashing learned in swim class. Anything in a six foot radius was soaked!
With all of these new skills Maxwell has turned into a rotten sleeper and he wasn't a great sleeper to begin with. I fully take responsibility for most of his sleep issues, apart from the restlessness that is typical of babies who are processing new skills and teething. On a really good night, M will wake up twice...once to eat and once for a diaper change (even with extra absorbent night time diapers he gets uncomfortable because his diaper is so full because he pees a lot). On a bad night he is up every hour or so (sometimes more, sometimes less). This is a lot of my own doing and ignorance early on.
When he was tiny and sleeping in our room I attended to his every whimper by feeding and changing him. This of course would fully wake him up and I would have to resettle him. I am also guilty of holding him for most of his naps. And lastly i nurse a rock M to sleep. As a result, I have a finicky sleeper. It is a process to get him settled in his crib, he has trouble settling himself back to sleep and will only take short naps if I am not holding him. I don't mind so much since I am home with him but if I was teaching it would be a disaster. Since M's surgery and his new found skill of rolling his night wakings are more frequent and he is far more awake which takes much mire effort to get him resettled. Basically, our old routines aren't working and I need to build better sleep habits.
Most sleep training methods aren't for us...hearing him cry even a little is more than I can bear and watching friend's try these methods I know that disruption to the plans takes you back to square one. I do have the no cry sleep solution book and plan on trying some of its suggestions. Here's hoping we have some amazing progress with sleep!
Two pieces of my heart that are gone forever and a new piece that brought back joy.
I don't think you can totally blame yourself for sleep issues--a good bunch of that is just luck. Zuzu started out a great sleeper and has become something of a lousy one even though we've done everything exactly the same all along--a lot of that has to do with growth spurts and developmental milestones (have you read Wonder Weeks or downloaded the app? I've found it useful to see where she falls on their chart--it's been right on so far!). Anyway, we've done the No Cry stuff too because I'm not about to let her cry/scream it out. We've had moderate success with it--it helped us transition her to her crib no problem, but it hasn't gotten her sleeping a solid 10 hours (yet?). One thing you might consider is a different kind of night time diaper... We cloth diaper so I don't know if you want to take that on, but we've had great luck with cloth diapers and hemp inserts at night. I know other people with older kids and heavy pee-ers use wool on the outside since it doesn't get cold. Wishing you luck!
ReplyDeleteWhen I get frustrated with all the scratches, I complain to Elliot (who is in charge of nail cutting) and he tells me that he tries quite hard to sharpen them into baby daggers. Hah.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brooke. Some kids just sleep better than others. B is the middle of the road, I think. I take no credit for the good days and get frustrated on the bad days. You just never know! We want so badly to attach meaning to their sleeping patterns, but I swear that although we are exactly the same every day (except travel which does affect things a bit), he still sleeps different every night!
You are amazing and I'm soooo glad he's healing so well and progressing great. Maxwell and his mohawk rock!