sleep...?

With a gigantic cup of coffee in hand, I'm sitting here wondering how on earth I have morphed into a person who (most of the time) functions on little sleep. Before Lucas was born, I was considered to have a grandma-inspired sleep schedule. Bed at 9:00 pm? Okay! 12 hours of sleep a night left me feeling well rested and ready to conquer the world. It was even a source of humor for my college roommates, right girls? Oh it's 8:30, better go home so Ashley can go to bed! It's sad, but true. Now...ha. Let's just say it's been an adjustment. For the first month or so, waking up every 3 hours to feed a baby at night wasn't so bad. I think that was with the help of adrenaline after having a new baby. In the meantime, we were working so hard to get Lucas on a good sleep schedule. Brandon read a book recommended to us by my cousin who has twins. My cousin referred to it as the sleep BIBLE for babies.

To this day, his toddlers are excellent sleepers. Sign me up!  So, following the book's suggestion, we started getting Lucas on a feeding schedule during the day, feeding him every 4 hours. Then we started eliminating nighttime feedings. The process for that was slowly eliminating one feeding at a time and reducing the number of minutes he nurses by 3 minutes every 3 nights. Sounds complicated, but it really wasn't. And it was actually working very well for us. Lucas would wake up in the mornings a little before 8:00, then eat at 8, 12, 4, and 8. So after the 8:00 pm feeding, we would put him to bed. We got to the point when he was around 2 months old where he was going to sleep after eating at 8 and would wake up around 3:30 and nurse for only 3 or 4 minutes, then go back to sleep until 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. Seriously! I didn't know how good we had it. This lasted for almost a month...then it hit the fan.


I think it may have started with a growth spurt. I was expecting that, so for a week or so I was okay waking up again with him to feed him every 3 hours again during the night. But now here we are, a day shy of him being 4 months old, and we are still having a really hard time at night. Last night? Every 2 1/2 hours. I don't think he necessarily wants to eat every time he gets up (although I know he would if I offered it) but it's mainly him just yelling! Not really crying every time, sometimes just yelling. I didn't know 4 month olds knew how to yell! So, what do you do?! First, we turned to the books. As intellectual as Brandon is, he was certain there was an answer and we could find it in a book. (I know, we are naive.) He did read something very interesting though. Has anyone heard of the 4 month shift? I hadn't until now. Apparently babies go through a big hormonal shift around 4 months old which can cause them to have major sleep regression. Makes sense. I compare it in my head to Lucas PMS-ing. Also, they said that 3-4 months is a big time of development, which we have absolutely seen. He is playing with toys, rolling over, jumping in his bouncer, etc. They say that can effect sleep as well with their busy little minds thinking of all of the new tricks they are mastering. So their advice, just stick it out and it will get better. But my fear is that we're forming bad sleep habits and it's not going to get better.


 Friends, we are exhausted. We have thrown the previously pictured "sleep bible" out of the window. Emotionally, it's so hard hearing my happy baby so upset at night. Physically, I'm wiped. And honestly, we are at a loss for what to do. Stick it out? Make a change? I'm not sure what else we could change. He has a great bedtime routine. We do a bath if it's bath night, then do our moisturizing regimen for little man's eczema, put on jammies, turn down the lights, turn on the sound machine and soft music, rock and eat, then sleep. And he goes down like a champ! No fighting, he goes right to sleep. We use a sleep sack and were swaddling him with his arms down, tucked in snug into the sleep sack. We started doing this around 2 months old when we got into our good routine because when he was a tiny baby he hated his arms to be tucked in. But once we started doing it, it helped. Last weekend out of desperation, I took his arms out and he slept like this:

He had 2 good nights last weekend and I thought we had fixed the problem by letting him sleep with those arms wide open. Nope. Maybe it was a coincidence. I don't think he's too hot or too cold. It's not his diaper. He is taking 2 naps during the day, we shoot for an hour nap in the morning and a 2 hour nap in the afternoon (although it's a battle, he fights naps.) I know some of you may be thinking maybe he's hungry because we're still on a schedule during the day. But I don't think that's it. Our 8-12-4-8 schedule during the day is great. He doesn't show any hunger cues in between feeds and eats like a horse during those feedings. That schedule has been a blessing because if he's fussing in between those times, we can eliminate hunger. It's usually either that he's tired, or he needs a diaper change. And besides, he's nursing for about 30 minutes before bedtime (his longest feed) and he still has been waking up yelling around 11:30 pm. And have you seen him? He is a big boy, so I don't think it's a milk issue. 


 So all of you mamas reading this...I am open to advice. Are we missing something? Is this just a phase? Y'all, I'm tired. I want my good sleeper back. Brandon and I say every morning to Lucas, "it's a good thing you're cute." Because wow, we're wiped. Our little guy still wakes up happy and smiling like this:

even though I know he has to be exhausted too. He has his 4 month checkup next week so I will definitely ask our wonderful pediatrician about it too. But in the meantime, let me know what you think. Suggestions, tips, hints, encouragement, and coffee are all appreciated.