I noticed a post a while back about the 8-10 month sleep regression, and I think that my DS is gearing up for it =(
Luckily once he is asleep he will sleep for a good amount of time, but GETTING him to sleep is a nightmare! Especially since things have been thrown off by staying with family and an out of town wedding. We don't have a solid schedule, but basically DS has always started to get sleepy about 2-2.5 hours after waking up, with a longer stretch of awake time in the evenings. He sporadically skips a nap here and there, which is fine, but generally I nurse him to sleep and he will nap anywhere from 40-90 minutes. The past week or so he will show sleepy signs, and I will try to nurse him down, but his eyes pop right open, and he rolls over and starts to play in his crib. If I try to rock him or get him back on the boob, he screams bloody murder. I had just been taking that as a sign that he wasn't ready to sleep, and I would wait until he was really super sleepy, and try again. Eventually he would go to sleep, but he was obviously over tired, and he would have a restless sleep. Today I tried just letting him cry (and fight and kick, etc) and rocking him until he quieted and fell asleep (usually 5-7 min), and he will go to sleep and then nap pretty well. I HATE having to do this, but he gets cranky and over tired if I don't. Soooo, my question is, should I let him decide when to sleep, or should I fight him on it and develop a routine? (obviously a routine within reason).Â
I'm afraid that if I don't "make" him sleep when he is tired that he will become sleep deprived, but if every sleep time is a battle, then he will make a rotten sleep association...what is the happy medium??! Is there one?
