My son will be 17 months in less than a week. It seems like he might already be in the 18-month sleep regression, though I've never been through it before so I'm not sure. He's been waking up pretty much hourly, crying like he's in pain, freaking out, whining, the whole range. The ONLY thing that will stop the screaming is nursing... nursing nursing nursing for hours until I whisper, "ok honey you need to let mommy go so she can roll over for a few because she can't feel her hand anymore."
Here's what I'm thinking, and I hope I don't jinx myself: because my little boy has pretty much never been an all-night sleeper, has woken up every 1-3 hours like 99.9% of the time since he was born, we are still nursing and cosleeping, it seems like a sleep regression won't be as dramatic for us as it might be for someone whose child is a "better" sleeper. For them (those lucky devils), they will be used to sleeping all night, no/minimal wakeups, etc. and then BAM sleep regression and it all goes to shit. They will be super tired and cranky and wondering what the hell went wrong. We on the other hand will have business as usual, only a little more difficult than usual. After almost 2 years of broken sleep I'm pretty much used to it.
In related news, we have rearranged our apartment so that we now have "the sleeping room" (used to be my son's room but as mentioned before he never sleeps in it) and our former bedroom is now "the playroom" (also contains our clothes/dressers). In the sleeping room, besides our bed which is now on the floor (easier for son to get in and out of) and my son's dresser, there is the infamous crib which is now a toddler bed (what an easy conversion!) He goes over to it and yells "bed!" then gets in it and jumps up and down on the mattress. Then it's off to other things. My theory is that having it there with us each night, it will just sit there all tantalizingly blanketed and soft with warm cuddly stuffed animals... calling to him slowly over time... and someday I'll wake up in the morning after a long full night of sleep and he'll be over there asleep in his own bed. I know, you think I'm a crazy dreamer. Well, dream it you f'in dreamers. It could happen! And it WILL happen when my little boy is ready. And I'm cool wit dat.
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"someday I'll wake up in the morning after a long full night of sleep and he'll be over there asleep in his own bed." Yes - and you'll even manage to forget what your less-sleep-filled life is like right now. Which is amazing. ;)
ReplyDeleteYAYAYAYAY!!!
ReplyDeleteHi! I saw your comment over at Hush's and thought I'd drop by to add my voice of encouragement on the sleep front. My older kid in particular always hit the regressions early, too. She sleeps through the night now, and has done for 3 years now (wow! hard to believe it is that long.)
ReplyDeleteI don't have much advice for solving sleep issues- the only thing that I did that ever actually worked, I think, is wait.
One thing that may or may not have helped our kids with the transition to sleeping in their beds is that we got them twin beds, and then starting joining the kid in her bed, instead of having her join us in ours.
Of course, I am still spending a fair portion of my nights in Petunia's bed, so this may or may not be a good idea. But we seem to be making progress.
Good luck. Hang in there.
@ Cloud, thank you so much for the comment! We're getting a twin mattress that I plan to put on the floor by our bed, then hopefully slowly transition it out into his room, etc. It seems like the sleep regression has ended (knock on wood) We had one AWFUL night last week where he was up from 1 to 5 am but since then it's been back to the same routine. He turns 18 months today so I'm hoping the regression is over?!
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