January 6, 2008

Up until about a month ago, Elliot would go to bed around 7, sleep until 4/5, nurse, sometimes then play for an hour on his own in his crib, then sleep until 7/8 and be up for the day.

He was also taking 3 hours naps once a day.

Now, he's waking up at 5:30 for the day, no matter what time he goes to bed at night. (We've tried a variety of times between 7-8:30). He's also gone back to 2 short (1-1.5 hr) naps per day.

I hate this schedule!! Jay keeps saying that sleep begets sleep and so if we just let him sleep as much as he wants during the day (ie, not waking him up if his naps goes past 5pm), he'll eventually things will change. (Yeah, Jay isn't the one getting up at 5:30 every day. It's me, 95% of the time.)

I think that we need to force/distract him into having a later and later nap in the hopes that it will turn back into a long nap and only 1 nap. And continue putting him to bed at 7.

Another problem to this is that sometimes I think just letting him cry would help, instead of running to check on him. (I usually do let him wait a couple of minutes.) But, the problem with this is that we now have a paying boarder who stays in the room next to Elliot and I feel crappy about him paying to be living here (it's temporary) and being woken up at odd hours.

Yesterday, Elliot woke at 5:30, napped from 10-11:30 and again from 4-5 (when I woke him) and then fell asleep at 8. he was up for an hour at 2, crying - he wanted me to hold him and kept trying to climb out of his crib while crying, so I gave in and rocked him. Then he was up for the day at 5:30.

Ugh!!!!!!!!! I'm exhausted and hate having to go to bed when he does so I can cope with his wake ups. Jay doesn't come to bed until 1, (for a variety of reasons, the main on being he's out of work right now and is working on freelance stuff) so I feel like a total jerk waking him to go tend to Elliot in the night.