Mark O. had a post about the first time his (5mo old) daughter slept through the night.
Trevor is doing pretty well. I still get up once or twice to stick a suck-toy in his mouth. And depending on how his feeding schedules work out, he may want to eat now and then @ 1am. But for the most part he sleeps a solid night of sleep. My problem is that he starts @ 7 or 8PM. So 3-4 hours of his solid sleep are spent by me goofing around on the computer or a video game. Not sleeping. So when he does get into 6-8 hr window where he fusses, it's smack dab in the middle of REM sleep for Daddy.
What I really need is one of those Ozzie and Harriet setups. Then I'd be too far away from Kristi for her to kick me when he fusses. ;) [smiley added so Wife knows I'm just kidding about the seperate bed thing.]
To quell Mark's desire for the freedom he tasted...don't worry. It will be here soon enough. She's just now getting to where she can eat more at a time, and thus less often. As you introduce her to real baby food in addition to titty-milk/formula she'll continue to be able to go longer periods of time without being hungry. Trevor is now 7 mos old, and he slept from 6pm to 6:30 am last night, with only needing his pacifier to go back to sleep 4 times.
I can tell you, as the person that does most of this middle-of-the-night stuff, it makes a huge difference when you only need to wake up enough to stick a pacifier back in their mouth. I can go all night and never really be conscious. Brevity of interuptions greatly increases quality of sleep.
Posted by danisaacs at May 21, 2003 01:24 PM | TrackBackInteresting... that's a wild concept for a baby to sleep _through_ the night. With a 2-week-old at home, we are joyous at 3-4 hours a shot. And, of course, I've heard that we're lucky to be getting that.
I'm lucky, actually, and I don't know whether I'm alone in this. I work, my wife doesn't currently. Hence, she takes the brunt of the nocturnal activities. Yes, she calls in the relief pitcher on very rare occasions, but she handles it 99% of the time. Our theory on this is that she has the possibility of catching up during the day if needed and I don't. It'll be interesting to see if this lasts, but so far she's been a peach.
Posted by: ColdForged on May 21, 2003 03:08 PMThanks for the words of encouragement, Dan. She's getting better, but I think the fact that she slipped backwards was hard on both my wife and I - it is truly a milestone we have been looking VERY forward to.
Coldforged: I think you're extremely lucky, actually. Make sure your wife doesn't burn herself out too quickly - it is easy to be a saint for a couple of weeks, but the long haul can be very wearing on somebody. Make sure (if nothing else) you spell her on the weekends a bit. You have no idea how thankful she'll probably be at actually getting 8 hours of contigous sleep.
Posted by: Mark on May 21, 2003 04:00 PMJust to defend myself. Dan takes care of Trevor while he is up until midnight. No sense in me getting out of bed if Dan is already awake.
I will take care of Trevor if he wakes up between the time Dan goes to bed and 3AM.
However, I get up for work at 5AM. ANd I want those last 2 hours of sleep before I have to get up. So normally if Trevor fusses after 3AM, then yes - I tell Dan to get up. After all - Dan sleeps in until 7:30 usually. And it is HIS decision not to go to bed until midnight, not mine. So if he doesn't get enough sleep - I don't feel like it is my fault.
If he came to bed at 10, then I would take care of Trevor from 10 to 3. All I personally ask - is that he takes care of Trevor between 3 and 5AM.
Posted by: Kristi on May 22, 2003 07:19 AM"And it is HIS decision not to go to bed until midnight, not mine." I love that line :).
Yeah guys (and gal), I personally don't think my wife can maintain this kind of schedule. She's already getting tired, and she's still got her mother-in-law in town to help out with chores and such. We've already discussed me handling some more of the evening feed-and-down episodes. I'm trying to figure out which will be most beneficial - the first one following getting her down at night, or the one nearest the 5-7AM timeframe. My thought is the first one.
We literally just got a pacifier in her mouth (mother-in-law... she can handle about 2 picoseconds of crying before calling for some kind of assistance) so it'll be interesting to see what kind of dynamic that adds.
One minor complication is that we're breastfeeding 100% with no desire to supplement. Cat's currently pushing it just to keep the baby content, with none really left over to pump for bottles. I've got a couple of ounces in there for me to use, but that's it. I've told Cat to try to pump when she can to build up a little store for me to be able to assist at night.
We'll see how it goes :). Thanks for the input folks!
Erm... confusion abounds. It's _her_ Mother that's in town, _my_ mother-in-law. Sorry.
Posted by: ColdForged on May 22, 2003 05:50 PM