Growing Up

Mr. Jacob T. Bean slept in his nursery last night, all by himself! It was very sad for me to not have him next to my bed all night, but we both survived and had a very good night's sleep. He slept from 7:30 to 7:30, getting up only once at 5am to feed. Amazing! He usually gets up at 6 or 6:30, so that was a nice treat for his exhausted parents. Hopefully it holds. He didn't sleep in his crib - we just moved his bassinet into the other room for now. I'll move him to the crib soon, but the bassinet is still better for napping because it rocks and I can sooth him without picking him up, and I want him to sleep and nap in the same place for a few days.

His naps have been a disaster lately. He went from regularly sleeping 2-3 hours at a time to waking up EXACTLY 30 minutes after he went down. Not restful. I could tell that he was still tired and cranky, but nothing other than wearing him in the sling could persuade him to go back to sleep. Since that is not really a sustainable option, we are having to do a little "sleep training" for naps to help him get more than one sleep-cycle at a time during the day. I sneak in after he's been asleep for 25 minutes so that I'm there to gently rock the bassinet when he starts to stir. Yesterday I successfully got him to drop off again without fussing or really fully waking up. The theory is that once I can get his body used to a nap that consists of more than one sleep cycle, we can gradually stop needing to sooth him. Wish us luck. I try not to be a mom that is stuck on ideas of "Oh, my baby should be doing this and this and this because the book says so" but he was obviously not getting the rest he needed during the day, even when he was sleeping so great at night.

It's hard to really commit to the naps, not just for Jacob, but for me as well. I'm struggling with figuring out if we can still go to yoga, and lunch with friends, and to his Aunt Terri's (when mommy has a meeting) if he is taking three naps a day and still eating eight times a day. He's been very mobile up until now, but the result of that mobility seems to be a decrease in good rest. But I don't like to stay home every day! I know that there is a balance, and we're working on figuring it out. Soon I'll be working a lot more and NOT having to take him into the city with me, so he'll be able to have some consistency even when I am needing to run around.

My little boy isn't a newborn anymore! He's a whole, big baby who can't just be carted around! And he's sleeping in his own room. Wow. This is going fast.