Back to Square 1

The past few nights have been rather confusing in our household. Jude seems to be back to square 1 with the whole sleeping through the night thing. At the time I started back to work, Jude began sleeping from 8 until sometime between 3-5. (He was 8 weeks old.) Since then, he has kept it up, even sleeping as late as until 6.

That is until the past couple days. He has starting waking up at 12, 3, 5, 7, and 8. Thank goodness this has been on a long weekend and I can sleep in! Typically once it gets to 7 and he's waking up, I just take him to bed with me and feed him laying down.

The thing is, he's not actually hungry all these times. He's not getting up wanting to play. He just is waking himself up. It's like he's forgotten how to put himself back to sleep, which he has previously been a champ at.

I have no idea what has caused this, but here are my theories. Theory 1: He has now been with a sitter for 2 weeks and she might rock him until he is dead asleep. Theory 2: I hate working and miss him so much, that I tend to hold him longer than I used to in order to soak up all available minutes with him. Theory 3: Lately, when I feed him at 8 he falls dead asleep literally as soon as he's eaten 20 minutes, so he isn't putting himself to sleep in his crib on his own. Theory 4: We moved him to sleep in his room the past few nights. Theory 5: Michael's parents have been in town and the past few nights he was up later than usual.

It's probably a combination of all of those theories to be honest. I've also heard that at 3 months babies start waking up again because they are needing more calories and they can't have solids yet. Supposedly, the rice cereal at night helps this. Maybe that's what it is as well.

Regardless, we are trying to get back in the habit of putting ourself to sleep here. Today during his first morning nap I didn't rock him at all. I stood over him at his crib until he was pretty much asleep. That way it was like a transition. He wasn't completely alone, but not totally dependent either. He went to sleep after about 15 minutes and slept for an hour or so.

The crazy thing about so much of this is that not only am I training Jude to do things independently, I'm training myself to let him be independent. I love being the mom, and it's hard to "let go". I can only imagine how I will be 18 years from now when he goes to college. Pathetic, but I love that kid! Anyway, we are relearning some skills around here...

Ha! This was Jude's first nap in the new house!