Bed Buddy

Since Matthew was born, he has slept every night in the crook of my arm. Sleeping this way began as a way of ensuring he could be comforted into a restful stretch of peace, and has continued as insurance that each stretch of sleep will last around 3 hours.

Even though I love the warmth of the body and the consistency that this has brought for both of us, the habit is risky and our sleep quality will suffer over tme. The need to wean him from this arrangement is inevitable. Thus, two nights ago I began to put an unfortunate end to this fine season of peace.

It shouldn't be too bad, really. We have a co-sleeper (like a basinette but with one side lowered to the level of my bed) in my room and he sleeps fairly well in it during naps. I nurse him in bed at night and when we are done, I burp him and usually slide down into the sheets and drift right back into sleep alongside him. Now, I just have to carefully place him in the co-sleeper next to me instead. The tricky part is, I have to be absolutely certain he is asleep before I place him down, otherwise he wakes and cries and the whole process begins again from scratch, with an infant who knows he is being conned.

The net effect of this is that for the past two nights, my trusty three-hour intervals of sleep have all but evaporated. Now we wake approximately every 90 minutes. You can imagine how I feel about this change. Unfortunately it takes a toll on Matthew, too, who needs longer stretches of sleep that can only begotten by draining each of my breasts every hour on the hour.

We don't have much choice except to keep working on it. During the day I've started putting him in his crib in his own room, and perhaps soon I will take him out of my room altogether. He would probably sleep better if he were in his own space all the time, as his daddy can be quite loud with his snoring, too.

Little by little, we will get there, but this week has been a tough one.