Padded Room
Friday, February 08, 2008

This morning, Scout's usual 4 AM waking (well, this morning, it was more like 5:30) when she wants to play for 2 hours rather than be nursed back to sleep, was diffused by a loooooong session of nursing accompanied by nerve-grating pinching, scratching, poking, and kicking. Poor thing just couldn't get settled down. I swear, when I go into her room to nurse her, she just gets so wound up.

She ended up getting frustrated and unlatched herself to wiggle all over the mattress for a while, as I rubbed her back and tried to calm her down. It eventually worked, but when I stepped out of the room and she finally got settled in and back to sleep, she was so close to the edge of the mattress (which is on the floor, BTW) that I just couldn't leave her there. I tried to scoot her back to the middle of the bed without disturbing her. Didn't work. 10 more minutes of back-rubbing and patting, and she was back to sleep. I stepped out of the room again and she managed to wriggle to the edge of the mattress within 2 seconds. This time, so that she would surely fall head first if she inched any closer to the edge. (Normally, she's pretty stationary all night and there is a baracade of Boppy pillows preventing her from going over the edge. But when she is having trouble getting settled in, she scoots like an inchworm and I am in such a hurry to escape the room without her noticing, that there is no time for a pillow baracade.)

I felt ridiculous (and tired and pissed) as I quickly trolled the house, gathering couch cushions and pillows to shove next to her mattress. I thought to myself, "Now, why exactly don't we use a crib? This is just stupid!"

Co-sleeping did not work for us because (as you can tell from the above encounter) Scout gets too stimulated by my presence. She was seriously up all. night. long. when she slept in our bed or when I slept with her on her queen size mattress. Not just nursing all night. I could tolerate that. Every time she would wake up and nurse, she would think it was party time after her snack. But for some reason, she gets good long stretches of sleep when she's on her own. I really can't complain about her sleep habits most of the time. Last night, she slept from 9:00 PM to 5:30 AM without so much as a peep.

But the mattress thing is getting annoying and I really think she would just settle herself back down and go back to sleep after that early morning waking if I just didn't go in her room. I'm not talking about letting her "cry it out". It's just that when I do hear her wake up at 4:00 or 5:00, it's normally just moaning and squirming and mild fussing. I always try to wait and see if she'll settle back down before I go in there, but she rarely does. She either gets all chipper and excited and ready to play if I leave her in there for a while without going in to nurse her or she gets worked up into a real cry. I'm afraid if I let her get all the way awake and leave her in there by herself, she'll crawl off the edge of the mattress. It doesn't really injure her as much as scare her the few times that has happened. But I still obviously don't want her to have to go through that. Plus, even though she is getting better about at least attempting to slide down off the mattress feet first sometimes, it's still not a good thing to have an unattended almost 10-month-old having the run of her room while mommy and daddy lay sleeping.

I can't help but think if she slept in a crib, all of this could be avoided because I could leave her in there longer to see if she'd eventually settle down and go back to sleep. I suspect that most of the time, she might just sit up and play for a while and then go right back to sleep if I left her alone. I really do think it's my presence that is screwing everything up.

UUuughh. Trouble is, she is so used to me laying down beside her to nurse her to sleep and she has NEVER stayed asleep when I have tried to transport her from my lap or the bed to her crib, so I just stopped trying.

I guess for now, it'll just have to be couch cushions until I figure out what we should do. Hhhmmm....maybe wall-to-wall matresses in her room? Who needs a dresser and toys, anyway?

Labels: baby sleep

posted by Unkempt Mommy @ 7:42 AM,

3 Comments:

At Fri Feb 08, 10:38:00 AM CST, sleeplesswonder said...: The crib thing was great, ( we had a hand me down crib went through 3 kids) and one night I went to put Toby down and I heard a bolt let go, the thing was stripped so bad it couldn't be fixed so I had to put him in a toddlers bed, that is when my fun really started, he now refuses to go in his bed if he falls a sleep on me. Urgh. I understand your struggles. I have seen many a sleepless night, hence my blog name.
I just wish there was a magic cure for it. And my son is a little over 2. When will it end.
At Sat Feb 09, 07:19:00 PM CST, dafeist said...: Sleeping in a crib doesn't solve sleep issues. I say this based on past experience with Liam since Romi doesn't sleep in her crib... At one point when he was a baby, Liam started to SCREAM when he was put in his crib. We weren't used to cosleeping, so it was a terrible situation that lasted months. And getting up 45 times a night to go to another room, get the baby out, calm him down, make him fall asleep to then put him back in his crib was draining.

So no comfort I know, but Scout would probably sleep just as horribly in her crib :-)
At Tue Feb 12, 07:16:00 PM CST, Annika said...: I am notoriously laid-back about this sort of thing, but I have to say -- I don't think she'll fall out of bed, and if she does, I think she'll only do it once. I wouldn't put pillows down.