Heading into this, we knew it would be a lot of work and we'd probably lose a lot of sleep before we gained any back. But we really wanted to get him sleeping through the night. So we buckled down and prepared for the worst.
It's been especially hard for Andrew and it's taken a toll on him because, as I mentioned previously, Caleb doesn't sleep easily and often needs to nurse for comfort. When we started at the beginning of this week, Caleb would wake every hour starting at 10pm, howling. He would cry for long stretches of time and finally fall asleep when he was too tired to cry anymore.
As the week wore on, Caleb slowly began to settle into our new routine. We had him eating more during the day so that hopefully he wouldn't wake at night from hunger. We enforced naps at semi-scheduled times so he wouldn't get over-tired and he'd sleep better. And we added a bit of play time with Nathan into his bedtime routine.
One week later, we've cut down his nighttime nursing from 3-4 times a night to just one. He'll still wake up a few times at night but Andrew can rock him back to sleep a lot easier now. And sometimes, he even soothes himself back to sleep!
I'm so proud of our littlest guy. He's come a long way.
Part of me is a little sad that this time is coming to an end, especially now that Caleb is turning into a little snuggle bug. I love it when he speed-crawls over to me for a big ol' snuggle.
But the other part of me, the rational sane side, is glad for the better sleep at night.
Oh, I can imagine how hard this will be, neither of my other kids slept through the nightbuntil they were 2. Nursing a newborn has reminded me hoe hard breastfeeding is.
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