Sleep is not just for the weak

16 weeks

We have a new and wonderful schedule in our household! (This post is mostly for documentation so when baby # 2 may come around and I am sleep deprived and wondering when I will ever get sleep again I can look back and remember how things went with N.)

We dropped another feeding on Saturday and are down to just 4 feedings a day - 7 ounces each. Which put him right on track to start trying the actual 12 hours by 12 weeks schedule (The Sleep Solution book). So Saturday night I laid N down at 6:30 and sure enough he slept until 6:30 the next morning! I had to go in there once and put his paci in around 4am. Well, I was wary the next night because this was giving me a whole new morning routine IF it worked. I would pump first, get ready and then wake him up and feed him before we left for work. Well he did it again! 12 hours!

So today we are officially on our fifth night of our new schedule and things are looking promising (knock on wood!). I was worried about getting into the 12 hour schedule because I had been waking him up at 5 and I did not want him going to sleep at 5 in the afternoon. I would never see him! 6:30 is as late as I can push it and still get to work on time. He just started acting so tired in the evenings waiting on that last feeding, so I thought maybe he was ready for this new schedule (even though apparently some babies are ready at 12 weeks). Our book would read 12 hours by 16 weeks :) (The book did help us get to 8 or so hours by 9 weeks too - very helpful.)

Our amazing sitter (nanny?) who watches N during the day drops him off to me at 3:15, so I feel like I have a good chunk of time with him in the evenings and then in the mornings he talks the WHOLE way to work, where he used to just sleep. It cracks me up!

I would definitely recommend the Baby Sleep Solution book, one of the very few I read because it was so small.

This picture reminds me of how much he likes to hear himself yell. :)

Mr. Sandman

Yesterday's 5QF asked if you had any recurring dreams. I immediately thought about a nightmare I've had over and over since I was a child, but then today I had another recurring dream that I completely forgot about:

I'm back waiting tables and there are SO many tables that I can't get to, its like something always keeps getting in my way and I'm SUPER stressed the entire time. I'm trying and trying to get to these people and take their order, I see their scowls and hear my boss yelling, but I just can't get there... This is an all-night event too, I usually wake up VERY stressed out and exhausted, but incredibly thankful I am no longer waiting tables.

Another one that often enters my peaceful night of sleep (I wouldn't actually call my sleep ever 'peaceful', but more on that in a minute) is where I am standing on something VERY small about 1000 feet in the air. It is usually wobbling and I'm holding on for my dear life. Talk about stressful... It is horrifying and has given me a fear of heights that didn't used to exist.

So about the peaceful sleep. It doesn't quite exist. We sort of have a running joke around my house because I come home with new pillows all the time hoping that the new one will be 'the one'. But, I've still yet to find it. I am a toss & turner. I often wish that my arms would detach for sleeping purposes because I wake up tingling with pins and needles from my arms falling asleep (rather ironic). Or if I'm not tossing and turning, I'm making my 'sleep wrinkle' worse. What is a sleep wrinkle you ask? Its a line that I have begun to have on my face. Go look in the mirror and squish your cheek towards your nose... you see that line that forms next to your nose???? I'm getting a permanent one because of the way I sleep!!!!! How terrible is that?! So to add to my constant uncomfortableness I now have anxiety all night that I am sleeping the wrong way and making my sleep wrinkle worse....

I read somewhere a girl's must have list. It said, a great mattress, bedding, pillows, etc. So this is my new mission. I'm almost to the point where I will pay a few thousand dollars for the secret trick to sleeping. I have an amazing mattress (Sealey True Form), but I need a pillow and bedding to add to it.... and possibly some training on how to sleep successfully!

Any suggestions?
Are you a stomach, back or side-sleeper? (If you sleep on your side, what on earth do you do with your arms?!)
What kind of pillows or bedding do you have? (I'm in love with these right now.)

Goodnight ;)