January 18, 2011

ABSOLUTELY...maybe?

The thing that's hardest about being a parent, other than lack of sleep and loosing your carefree free time, is the constant GUESS WORK that goes into the day in and day out of raising a kid. 

For instance, during the past week Ransom has been getting a lot more active and now so much so that its affecting his sleep. Ransom has been a HARDCORE swaddle fan up until now, and Brett and I can thank the swaddle for many nights of uninterrupted sleep and days of  2 hour naps.  But apparently those days are OVER. Because now, no matter how hard we try, we cannot keep Ransom swaddled. He gets out of it. And then he freaks out. 
And thus I am awaked a million and twenty times during the night to RE-swaddle him or to put his pacifier back in. AND we've been suffering through days of 30 minute naps. UMMM! Yeah, that throws a BIG OL' kink in our day time activities. 

And so, after another awful night and another 30 minute nap to start our day, I've decided we've reached another "sleep training" moment. I am now going to put Ransom down for his naps with one arm already outside the swaddle. This way he can learn NOT to knock the pacifier out, and what to do if he does.  This way he can learn how to stay asleep if he moves around. Afterall, he's just going to get more and more active. So I think long gone are the days of the little motionless burrito who could sleep all day. On to this new phase...

But, honestly, I keep thinking to myself...is this really what's wrong?!? Maybe there's something else going on that I'm missing?!?! 

GAH! 

And so I'm also organizing and updating my recipe box. Because at least that's ONE THING I know for sure how to do. 

Here is a picture I took of the baby monitor the other evening when he had YET AGAIN gotten his arm out of the swaddle. He stayed asleep this time...but what about the NEXT?!


( and raise your hand if you DIG the video monitor?!?! MEEEEE!!!!) 

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

But...he's still so sweet! Such a cute lil' rascal.

I hope this phase will be over soon, my friend. Maybe the video monitor exacerbates the feelings on your end because it's like you are "refreshing" your e-mail page every little while to see if you got an important e-mail. Maybe? I don't know.

-Amy K.

Stacey said...

So, so, so true! The guess work is excrutiating! Raising babies is really a trail and error thing.

Amy Bushatz said...

Ugh I remember these days. They were uncool.
Thought: is it possible that because he is unswaddling himself he's also feeling a tad cold?

crumbshappen said...

This makes me exhausted just reading about it! Hope the new phase moves quickly and you're able to get more sleep soon! :)

Carina said...

Im disappointed that you overlooked an obvious solution to the swaddling problem: Duct tape.

Anonymous said...

we had this struggle with Cal and I tried the one arm thing to no avail, so then I just went for it. It was horrible (i.e. up every 20 or 30 minutes all night for the better part of a week), but then he adjusted, so maybe just try ditching it all together. It will probably be a rough few nights at first, but hopefully he will sleep better in the long run.
-Rachel