Sleep Progress

Ace continues to have progress toward healthy sleeping habits. On Thursday night he slept from 9pm until 2:30am! Another 5.5 hour stint! Woohoo. Now granted from about 3am-7am he slept horrifically, rolling all around, fussing in his sleep, waking, nursing, I'd pull away after he clearly would be suckling and not eating and he'd scream - repeat for four hours. Around 7am he settled in and slept for an additional 80 minutes after that he awoke and said 'all done' - well I guess that's that. A far greater feat than Tuesday and Wednesday nights' sleeping patterns which were more traditional Ace Sleeping Habits: 3-3.5 hours of sleep, wake, sleep and wake every two hours (or less) and then wide awake at 6:45am. So Thursday night was a welcomed deviation from the standard.

Friday night he went to sleep at 9pm after eating 4 nuggets, nursing, and drinking a full bottle right before sleeping and he awoke 1:15 (4.25hrs, yipee!) which is better than his average. I brought him to our bed and tried to corral him into a good REM cycle only to have him awake or nursing suckling until 3:30 at which point I could not take it anymore and gathered him up and toted him to his room, turned on the space-heater and laid him in bed, prepared to nursing him unconscious, when I laid him down though he was out... um ok sweet! Back to bed I went, although sleep did not come to me until around 4:15 - siigh. Ace woke again at 6:15, nearly another three hours asleep on his own. Between 6:15-7:30 it was more of the same snooze-fits and by 7:30 he was sitting up saying 'CAT!' as loud as he could (he had spotted Tort at the end of the bed, also still trying to sleep!) So Friday night was a new first in the battle progress toward sleeping through the night: putting Ace back in his bed after we've brought him into ours. I think that we'll continue to try that in the near future as it seems to have been beneficial to all parties and not at all a painful transition (this time.)

Naps have been going ok as well. I've given up forcing them - after the last battle on Monday of two hours to get him down for an hour nap - I decided the 'AM' nap that we had been more or less consistently doing was just not working. The remainder of this week I simply watched for cues of sleepiness on Wednesday it took 15 minutes to get him to sleep around 4pm (after waking up at 6:45am) and he slept for 2 hours and still went to bed without much issue around 9pm. Thursday, which also began around 6:45am he went down for a nap at 1pm in two minutes - I took him upstairs and he was OUT and he slept for 55 minutes. Friday, he was a tad more rambunctious when I started to put him down for his nap, but he had been so volatile for nearly two hours and he wasn't hungry (part of the problem in the first hour) that I decided that it was nap time. He was squirmy, rolled over and kicked a few times - events that had not taken place on Wednesday or Thursday - but he still went to sleep within ten minutes and slept for 80 minutes. Today is Saturday - and always a tad different from the rest of the week - since he awoke at 7:30 and has been playing pretty hard off and on all morning with his father, Loving Husband put him down for a nap starting at 10:30 so took about 20 minutes, so he's napping now, but who knows what that means for the rest of that day :) Only time will tell.

Happy Saturday, everyone!