The Sleep Thing

Typical recent conversation with friends, associates and strangers:
Friend: "Oh he's SO cute! How old is he now?"
Me: "Almost two months."
F: "Wow he's getting so big!"
M: "I know. He's huge!"
F: (In a lower, more ominous tone) "So... how is he sleeping?"

Now this is a very important question. It is by far the most challenging part of the lives of most newborn's parents. I get asked this question so often, there are times I want to say:
"Well, usually it's with his eyes closed, but he has been know to keep them cracked even though he's really asleep."
or
"Generally laying down, but he does prefer a more upright sleep position."


In truth however, I'm quite excited to relate Jackson's latest sleeping habit, as it is always different.

That's one thing that I've had to learn. Habits generally don't stick around for longer than 3 days. Sometimes this is good--like the "I'm going to stay awake from 5 pm until 2:30 am" habit. Sometimes... not so good, like the "I love to sleep in my carseat" habit. [Seriously did not know how good we had it until it changed to "I love to cry in my carseat."]

In general, we can't complain too much about Jackson's sleeping. He takes good naps during the day--as long as there's not too much going on around him, and he'll sleep for 6 hours in between feedings at night (he just likes to determine when the last feeding is--last night it was gratefully 10:30--not 2:30).

However, if some one asked me today, how he's sleeping, I would be overjoyed to share a very exciting detail about last night. Jackson has a problem sleeping in his crib. I guess he just has too much room. In fact, sometimes when we need to wake him up, we lay him in his crib... and presto! He'll wake up within 0-30 min.

SO, after a month of sleeping in our room, we moved his bassinet to his room to help the transition. This was very successful for Mark, as he was able to sleep without being interrupted by Jackson's groans and grunts that occur all night long, and successful for Jackson, as he still felt secure in his little bassinet. Unfortunately he's getting a bit large for his little bed--everytime I lay him down his hands hit the sides, plus he always slides down to the bottom and squishes his legs. (He's waking up in the photo below.)


So, despite his general pattern of waking up within 1/2 hour of being laid in his crib, I decided to risk it last night. I seriously had to get a strong spiritual confirmation to do this, because it was 10:30, and I was really looking forward to going to sleep so early.

Wonderfully, I could NOT believe the clock when I woke up to his hungry moans at 4:45 this morning. Woo Hoo! Success.


Now if we could only make this a genuine habit, we'll be fairly set.