The Evolution of Sleep

I never expect to sleep much with a new baby in the house. But after having a hard time with Greg, I was determined to have better luck with Josh. Here's how it's gone so far.

 As a newborn, Josh loved to be swaddled tight in this contraption:

It was nice not to have to re-swaddle him every ten minutes. (My babies are escape artists!) He slept for 3 hours at a time. I called him my little burrito. But after a month or so he was too big for the straight jacket.

We had a couple rough weeks of sleep. And then I found this:

Joshua, 2 months old

Oh happy day!  I had no idea when I took this picture that he was about to sleep through the night, and continue for the next two months! I think he liked that it was heavy and soft and covered his hands. He was so happy every morning when he woke up after a good nights' sleep. I did not take it for granted. Every morning was a celebration.

And then. He grew out of it.

I finally admitted on New Years that it's too small for him. Look how the armholes are at his elbows! And how his feet are all squished. He gets mad trying to straighten his legs. Poor little guy. 

So I started putting him to bed in a "normal" sleeper. We got no sleep. I began my search for a new sleepsack with mittens. Nobody makes them that big. (This one was 0-9 months. I can see why babies older than that don't need mittens, but what about a 4-month-old who is as big as a 9-month-old?!)  We went another week without sleep and it was getting ugly.

I thought Josh would eventually get used to a normal sleeper. None of my other babies needed their hands covered!  But one night I started thinking. We all know that desperation is the mother of invention (or something like that, right?).  I talked to my sister, who had made sleepers before, and she gave me the confidence to do it.  

Ta-da!  Here's what we came up with.  My sister actually made the sleeper part a few years ago for her baby. But it was big enough on Josh that I could turn the normal sleeves into mittens.  It was a little tricky to make them fold-able so that his hands can be uncovered when we want them to be. And since the sleeper was big on him, I had to sew a snap on at the neck to make it smaller.  Oh, how I love my sewing machine!  And my sister of course. 

Josh loves it!  And we're finally sleeping again. He's not quite back to sleeping all night, but I think it's a normal phase at this age to wake up once or twice.  And it's much better than the last few weeks! 

Here's Josh, waiting for the boys to get on the bus.

Josh is waking up happy in the mornings and his sleep sack should fit him for a loooong time. And if he grows out of it and still wants mittens, my sister has an even bigger one that I can alter. So our sleep story should be getting better all the time. (I might draw the line if he still wants me sewing mittens on his clothes for kindergarten.)

Of course I don't give the blankets all the credit for Josh's good sleep. He is a great little boy. He likes his pacifier.  Plus I got a lot of guidance from this book:

 

I'd highly recommend it to anyone with kids of any age. In fact it even helped me sleep better too. I bought it last summer to help with Zach's sleepwalking (it worked) and it gives great background info on sleep patterns, brainwaves, etc. It was really interesting to read, and the applications worked. I wish I had read it four babies ago!

That's all for now. It's great to feel well-rested and functional again! Sweet dreams.