Sleeping Like a Baby

A while back, Ted shared a joke with me that he heard at a conference. Two insurance salesmen were talking to each other, discussing their business in light of the poor economy. The one salesman asked the other how he slept at night. The reply was that he slept like a baby: he woke up every two hours screaming.

I think of that joke often in my daily life with the fab four. I just returned to the table after putting Theo back to sleep, a skill that has become painfully routine this week in VA. Theo, like Mattie, has been a great sleeper since birth. We followed the same routine with both boys - we swaddled them from day one, and always tried to put them down awake, but sleepy. But, something happened after we arrived in VA this week. Theo has started waking up at night again, and has suddenly stopped taking his normal 3 hour afternoon nap. Overall, he really still sleeps very well for a 5 month old. But, he is not sleeping nearly as well as he has all summer. I am very unhappy about it. The most frustrating part for me is the disruption to his afternoon nap. He has been going down like usual, but waking up after an hour or an hour and half, crying loudly. Normally, he wakes up from his naps very happy. My rule for babies and napping is that anytime a baby wakes up crying, he didn't sleep long enough, and needs to go back to sleep. So, the first day Theo woke up crying, I tried nursing him back to sleep. It worked. Unfortunately, he has repeated that pattern every day this week. Each time, I'm stuck sitting in a dark room, nursing him back to sleep, then holding him quietly until he goes into a deep enough sleep to put back into his bed. After that, he goes on to sleep another 2 hours. So, he's still taking his long afternoon nap, just in two segments, joined together by a breastfeeding session. Part of me wants to blame Theo's bad sleep on traveling, but we were at my parents' house last week, and he slept fine there. Something else is going on.

Having gone through this many time before, I know this is just a phase. This too shall pass. It's not really much of an inconvenience with Ted and so many other relatives here to help. But, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I'm not happy that my otherwise perfect baby has ceased sleeping perfectly. And, next week I may be in even more trouble. School starts for Jack, Elliot and Mattie. I will be doing pick-ups at two different schools from 2:15 until 3:45 each afternoon. I'm not exactly sure where, when or how Theo will sleep then. I guess the best I can hope for, is that he'll sleep like an adult.