Sleep Update

I write this as Hudson is screaming....

We tried stopping the swaddle cold turkey. I gave in at 2:45am on the first night and swaddled him. He did go back to sleep, but when he stirred, he unwrapped himself and covered his face with the blanket. So I knew that I needed to not do that anymore. A friend recommended "half-swaddling" him. This has been ok. We just wrap him from the waist down, so he has the snugness of the swaddle, but he can't cover his face. Instead, his arms are free and he continually hits himself in the face. More specifically, he makes fists with both hands and hits himself in the left eye over and over and over again (no joke!). Then, he starts to fall asleep, startles and hits himself in the eye again. I never would've guessed that parenting would be about trying to help your 4.5mo old son stop hitting himself in the eye over and over again instead of falling asleep.

So, tonight we're going to try and address his nighttime hunger. In other words, I'm going to attempt to not feed him every 3hrs like he is wanting. When he was 2 mo old, he had a few nights where he'd sleep for 6 hours straight. We have regressed. And last night I fed him every 2-3 hours. I need to put an end to his snacking. He's old enough and weighs enough to go more than 3 hours at night without eating. My plan is to just give him his pacifier when he wants to eat the first time (& give it to him again every 10 or so minutes while he screams until he falls back asleep). I'm writing this on the blog for accountability. At the time, it's so much easier to give him a snack and go back to sleep, but the problem is getting worse. I'll write tomorrow how well we stuck to our guns.

He's now sleeping (after almost an hour of crying, the first time we've let him cry that long without picking him up). Good night!