B.A.B.E. Week 29: Sleep Issues

In the cockpit of the plane for our flight to Utah

On Sunday night, Elle and I took a red eye back to the Bahamas…pretty brutal.  So it’s no wonder that today and yesterday Elle slept more and was more fitful.   However, even excluding the red-eye and travel, sleep hasn’t been that great for the past two months. 

Our Utah flight pilot holding Elle in the cockpit

Prior to these past two months, Elle was sleeping through the night, roughly 10pm-5am.  Now, she wakes multiple times per night and wants to nurse.  We got on this trajectory after three factors: (1) household chaos; (2)  I thought that she was teething; and (3) earlier bedtimes.  

At the Utah museum of natural history with her uncle and cousin

Household Chaos

These last couple of weeks, okay really the last 2 months, have been pretty hectic with travel, guests and hurricanes.  The first two are wonderful, things that energize us and create deep meaning.  But they are also tiring and getting the right balance, almost entirely on the travel front, has been tricky.  I am both glad that Elle has been all over the place in her first 6+ months and am also a bit concerned about the impact of so much motion.  Thus far, she seems to enjoy it and she is not familiar with carbon guilt yet.  On the last issue, hurricanes, it is not hard to identify the beginning of October as the point when Elle's sleep pattern got worse.  Single parenting was tough that week: http://livingthekoroldream.blogspot.com/2015/10/babe-week-22-is-co-parenting-fact-or.html. 

Teething – where are the teeth?

From 6 weeks to 4 months when Elle slept through the night, I did everything I could to not nurse her before 5 am because I knew that she had enough food in her belly and could sleep through the night.  To be fair, she often didn’t wake up that much and wasn’t too hard to put back to sleep.   And then at around four months, Elle started becoming a lot more fussy, was drooling a lot and fixated with her hands.  So I thought – teething!  Other mothers who saw her doing this posited she was teething too.  Thus, instead of making her wait to nurse until 5 am, I would just bring her into the bed, nurse her and we would both fall back asleep in our bed.    Now Elle is still sleeping in our bed sometime in the night but no teeth have emerged.

With her 10 month old cousin

Earlier bed time – deep sleep early? 

The other factor that may have spurred the multiple wakings in the night is that we now put Elle to sleep much earlier than we used to.  We have been putting Elle to sleep much earlier than we used to because  she has seemed tired and “overtired”.   As many of the baby books say, when your baby is “overtired”  (e.g., the adrenaline has kicked in to keep your baby from sleeping) then you should put the baby to sleep earlier at night.  We followed this advice but now Elle often sleeps from 7pm – midnight or 3 am instead of 10 pm -5am.   This pattern makes me wonder whether she has a deeper sleep earlier and thus if we had a later bedtime whether she would again sleep until 5 am.  Wilson thinks this is the case. 

The deeper sleep theory was somewhat born out by our red-eye traveling experience.  During the red-eye experience, Elle slept through a lot -- dropping off the rental car, riding in the rental car shuttle, checking in, being put in and out of the stroller for security, boarding the plane, and lifting off.   She was amazing.  But her biorhythms meant that at around 2 am, she woke up, ready to socialize after her deep 5-6 hours of sleep.  This makes me think that maybe we should go back to a later bedtime and see if it makes a difference in her sleeping.  It may but I don’t think that it is worth an exhausted Elle in the evening.  When she is tired after 6:30 pm or so, she seems miserable and I don’t want to prolong any misery.

Playing with her uncle and cousin

So what are we going to do?

The short answer: nothing.  In the short-term, we are just going to continue to accept Elle’s patterns because she is a very happy and thriving baby. We don’t want to disturb that equilibrium.

The long answer: We are already doing some things such as encouraging her to self-soothe and fall asleep on her own.  So we will continue to do that for naps and bedtime.  We also plan to keep her as calm as possible at night so she understands that night time is for sleeping.   And in the long-term once we feel like there are two ideal conditions for sleeping through the night, then I may try again to not nurse until at least 5 am.   The two conditions will be:  (1) there is a calm in our life; and (2) Elle is eating a fair amount of solids.

With regards to calm, that may not happen for a little while because we still have upheaval of more visitors and travel.  The travel is the biggest issue – the visitors not so much.   We have a couple upcoming trips to neighboring counties in the next several weeks. So maybe in 3 weeks or so, we will try again.  

With regards to solids, Elle is starting to get the hang of solids and we are starting to get the hang of working her solids into her 'meal' planning as well.   She has now tried (in the following order) avocado, bone broth, sweet potato, banana, papaya, oat baby cereal fortified with vitamins, rice baby cereal fortified with vitamins and probiotics, and broccoli.   Her favorite thus far? Bananas and rice cereal.  Somewhat surprising, bone broth came in third.  I am hoping that soon, solids will substantially add to her caloric intake and relieve some of the pressure that I feel about my milk supply.

And the other aspects of B.A.B.E.dom?  Elle’s development continues to delight us.  She is clapping her hands frequently and waving – both turning her wrist and squeezing her hand open and shut.  I am not sure that she understands why we wave yet but she is fascinated with doing it.

And aspirations, body, and exploration?  Exploration has been in full swing and will continue as we try to see a lot of the Caribbean before our posting in the Bahamas ends in August 2016.  Career also continues to truck along despite the lack of sleep but the “body” part of  B.A.B.E.dom has suffered as my will power to exercise hard and resist the temptation of empty candy calories has waned in light of my sleep deficit.   Hopefully, that sleep deficit will fill and my will power will strengthen along with increased sleep.

With grandma in front of her uncle's sweet house overlooking the Salt Lake valley