Posts Tagged ‘baby sleep’

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Xander Week 16 - Day Care Woes & Worries

January 11, 2007

Xander & SaraFirst, I apologize for the delay in posts - I’ve been home with Xander for the past 2 weeks, and he has been rather demanding of my time, leaving very little time to do anything, and cleaning the house unfortunately took priority over blogging…  This morning Xander is having a trial run at day care in preparation for next week when he starts full time.

I still love the day care that we found - they have an excellent set up, and have been doing this for years, so they’ve got their routines figured out.  Xander is in a room with 3 other babies, and one staff member devoted to watching the four of them.  She is great, and I know that Xander will get an adequate amount of attention there, but it won’t the be one-on-one attention that he gets at home.  He’ll probably have times where he cries longer before someone meets his needs, and he won’t have someone to entertain him all day.

On the other hand, he’ll have lots of interaction with other children, and he’ll get some time with an experienced care-giver who can perhaps convince him that “tummy time” isn’t the end of the world.  I’m sure he’ll have 20 colds before the season is over, but his immune system will be stronger eventually.  There are lots of positives to day care to balance out the negatives, but it is still sad for me to have to send him there.

The huge thing we are struggling with now is sleep.  Zach and I are both working next week.  Though Xander has proven that he can sleep through the night, he has had absolutely no interest in doing so this week.  This week has actually been worse than the past month.  Xander has been waking up around 2 or 3am to eat, and then he wakes up every hour or two after that to snack some more.  I’m hoping he’s just having a growth spurt, and he’ll be back to a more reasonable schedule soon.  If not, then Zach and I are both going to be very tired starting next week.

I’m curious to hear from working parents how they resolved this issue - who sleeps and who doesn’t?  Do you take turns?  If so, what is that schedule like?  Does someone get up with the baby for a whole week, and then the other parent the following week?  Or do you swap every other night?  Are there any other solutions out there?  It seems silly for both Zach and me to loose the same amount of sleep every night, but it doesn’t seem fair for one of us to be put on permanent night duty.   And what is best for Xander?  Right now he’s sleeping in his bassinet in our room, but soon he will outgrow the bassinet and be upgraded to the crib in his room.  I’m not sure how he will sleep in a room by himself, and getting up to tend to him in the night is a much bigger investment when you actually have to get out of bed…  I guess these are all things that we will work out in time, but I’d love to hear suggestions from anyone who has any ideas on how we can resolve this particular issue.  Thanks!

baby, babies, infant, parenting, working parent, working parents, baby sleep, baby routine, sleeping through night

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Xander Week 13 - Sleepy Baby!

December 18, 2006

Sleeping XanderI don’t know if it was the busy party, or recovery from a cold, but Xander finally slept through the night! We know it is possible! Zach and I went to an office Christmas party Monday night. Xander was of course Mr. Popularity. Everyone wanted to hold him. Once the first lady scooped him up, Zach and I didn’t hold him for the rest of the party - he got passed from one person to the next and everyone was eager to cuddle with this adorable, snuggly little baby. By the time we left around 9pm, Xander was asleep in his car seat. When we got home, Zach and I watched television for about an hour, and we didn’t move Xander - didn’t even unbuckle him because he was still fast asleep. At 10pm, we went to bed, and Xander didn’t even begin to twitch until about 5am. Even then, he dozed until almost 6am when I got up to feed him! It was amazing and incredibly exciting for us sleepy parents, and now I’m afraid he won’t do that again until he’s 6 years old (hehe).

On a side note, I changed Xander’s diaper just before we left for the party around 6pm, and didn’t change it again until 12 hours later at 6am. 12 hours and that one diaper absorbed an amazing amount of urine - Xander’s onesie has just barely started to get wet which I thought was quite impressive! That was a Huggie’s brand diaper. We’ve now sampled Luvs, Huggies and Pampers. After a little more sampling I plan to write a diaper review, but right now, I’m pretty impressed with Huggie’s absorption rate!

baby sleep, diapers, huggies, infant sleep, sleep challenges, sleep problems, sleeping through the night