I know we talk about sleep all the time, in the Chit Chat threads and elsewhere, but it's such a big topic that I thought it deserved its own thread.
So this will be a place to come and unload about sleep woes, or talk about sleep triumphs, or ask for advice about sleep, both nighttime and nap sleep. Sound good?
I'll start - so I'm SO TIRED right now. Oren is going through his 4 month sleep regression big time, in a way that DD never did. During her regression, DD started getting up every 1-2 hours, when before she had a 6-hour stretch and a couple of 3-hour stretches. And so, after a while, I just started sidelying in bed, no problem. I got tons of sleep, and though she was still waking every 1-2 hours, she was IN her bed from 7pm - 7am.
Oren is also getting up every 1-2 hours, but the problem is that after 2am he doesn't really want to fall back asleep. Sidelying doesn't do it, because he doesn't comfort nurse. He has been falling asleep with my pinky, but that doesn't work after 2am. The only thing that works is getting up and nursing him in the rocker with a nursing pillow - and as soon as I put him down in the bed he's awake again. He does this until I'm absolutely crazy and 5am rolls around and I wake DH to take him. DH reports he's up for the day at 5 and generally has one 20 min sleep in the Ergo around 7am. DH wakes me up at 7:30 -8:00 for nursing.
He also will only nap for 20 - 40 mins at a time. But unlike DD, this seems fine for him - he's happy and talkative and chill for 90 minutes until it's time for his next nap. It's that time now, in fact!
This sounds a lot like how Luca slept from months 2-4, except his awake time was more like 4 a.m. This is why my husband and I started taking care of him in shifts, so that we could both get enough sleep.
At first in the family bed, he slept longer chunks of time, like 2-3 hours. Then he reverted to one hour wakes, and last night was back to 2-3 hour stretches. Fortunately, he usually sleeps 12-14 hours at night total, not counting the wake stretches. My dh gives me a 2-3 hour stretch of sleep in the morning now, and as long as I get that, I can manage during the day.
I'm glad you at least get nap bits in the day, though I am sure it is a frustrating 3 hours in the wee bit of the day. It's hard (for me anyway) to be okay with being awake when I really feel like I ought to be asleep.
Luca seems to sleep well for a day or two--long stretches at night and decent naps, and then crappy for a day or two. Anytime I'm like, "whoa! I slept for 12 hours!", I know the next day I'm going to be grumbling about how little I slept. Sigh.
And right as my up at the crack of dawn daughter shifted into teenager style sleep, not getting up til 9 or 10, now there's this baby. I know soon enough he'll be sleeping better, and I'm excited not to wake up 5-6 times a night!
carey
Conner's 4-month regression only lasted a couple of weeks, THANK GOD. He was literally waking up every 1-2 hours and was a #$%$%&#$%@#$# to get back to sleep.
He's always been a pretty good sleeper... Even at birth, he was going 3-4 hours between wakings and he's always only woken up to eat, then drifted right back to sleep (Usually while nursing).
His "normal" bedtime, for his entire life, has been 7pm but lately (Like tonight), he's been up until almost 9... Which is fine, because then he sleeps in later in the mornings, which is good for DH because he has to get up with him since I'm already at work and DH doesn't get home from work until midnight, so he doesn't get to bed until 1am or so. I actually get more sleep then DH does. LOL!
He'll fall asleep anywhere from 7-9 now and sleep until 3-4, eat, then he's back asleep until 7-9... Then he'll stay up for 1-2 hours then take a solid 2-hour nap.
He's a devil when he's awake though, so I say it's a "compromise". He's bad when he's awake but he's a good sleeper... Which I'll take, LOL.
I don't think I'd survive if he was a bad sleeper. I work full-time and am in school full-time... If I didn't get sleep... Oh, man. That would be bad.
Coralie wakes up every 2-3 hours at night, which is pretty much been the same since birth. Sometimes she'll sleep in one 4-5 hour stretch and then be up every 2 hours after that. She's generally sleeping by 8:00pm now, which is great! Her naps have dramatically decreased lately. She takes four 45 minute naps a day, so about 3 hours total. She's generally quite happy when she's awake and laughs at just about everything, so it's okay with me. :)
I am not getting much sleep recently. Part of it is my own fault: it's tough for me to make myself go to sleep before 12:30 or 1. Then, like I've said, Jasper is up around 3, I have to wake up dsd at 5:30, and dd1 and dd2 at 6:30. But I can handle that. Recently, even that's getting messed with.
Dh has horrible allergies. This has caused his snoring to get out of control. Normally, if he lies on his left side, the snoring is quite enough that I can sleep. Not anymore. It keeps me awake and startles Jasper, which keeps me even more awake. Last night, dd1 and dd2 were at their dad's, so theoretically I should be able to wake up dsd and then go back to bed. Nope. Dh snored, sniffled, and sneezed until he finally got up. Then, I think he came in and out of the bathroom and closet about 50 times, making noise and shining light on Jasper and I each time. I just laid there, not sleeping, from 5:30-7:30.
So, I have to share my epic no-sleep of Sunday night. Dh went to sleep at 11:30 and asked why I wasn't. I laughed and told him I wouldn't get any sleep anyway, so what did it matter! I finally went to sleep at 12:30. And by sleep, I mean I laid in bed listening to dh snore. I finally dozed off while plugging my ears, then Jasper woke up at 1:30. Got him, changed him, put him in bed with me, and laid there listening to dh snore. Finally fell asleep, and my mom calls at 5:15. I freak out, thinking my dad had a heart attack. I missed the call and had to call her back. Nope- everything was fine. She just accidentally called. I went ahead and got dsd up. Then, laid there and listened to dh snore. I think I fell asleep at 6:00 and slept until 6:15 when dsd came in to remind me I needed to write an excuse for her absence. AHHH!!! Anyway, by then I was up. It was a busy day, but I finally had a chance to take a nap at 1:30. Dh called at 1:45 to ask if I had managed to take a nap. Yep.
I am fantasizing about buying a king sized bed for my room, taking my bed and putting it in Jasper's room... and then sleeping in Jasper's room!! But that would hurt dh's feelings. Sigh. I am a zombie...
The snoring sucks. My dh used to snore a little, but now it's a lot. I have a white noise machine I use to help drown him out. And I also sleep with a pillow over my head, over my ears specifically. Between that and ds wriggling, it's been rough. DH takes the baby when he wakes up, and I usually get 2-3 hours of deep sleep in. I don't know what I'd do without that.
So, my ds has been nursing a little better during the day. Nights, he's just like an animal running on instincts, so once he's actually asleep, he pretty much sleeps through nursing, or will wake up just enough to nurse and then pop off to sleep. Lately, though, he's been popping on and off repeatedly, like dozens of times after he's (what I consder to be) done with the feeding. My nipples don't like that!!
I noticed if I held him in place when he's on his back, so that he can't flop over and latch back on, that he usually stops flopping and wriggling in less than a minute and zonks off into deeper sleep. Is anyone else's baby like this? I don't especially like holding him down (and if he's insistent on nursing, I let him), but it seems to side track his wakefulness into sleep, which I think is good for both of us. I just find it weird.
carey
carey
Conner can't sleep on his back and lately he'll flop over to his back as soon as I lay him down, in turn, not being able to fall asleep. So when I put him in his crib, I'll put my hand on his back so he can't plop over until he finds his thumb, then he normally stays on his belly. The last few nights, he's woken up once to eat and twice because he's on his back. So I've had to get up three times... Two of them JUST to roll him back over.
I noticed if I held him in place when he's on his back, so that he can't flop over and latch back on, that he usually stops flopping and wriggling in less than a minute and zonks off into deeper sleep. Is anyone else's baby like this? I don't especially like holding him down (and if he's insistent on nursing, I let him), but it seems to side track his wakefulness into sleep, which I think is good for both of us. I just find it weird.
carey
Not weird at all, it's a great little trick that I had to learn from more experienced mamas, works brilliantly with O. Another good one for those babies who don't like to be put down after falling asleep in arms is to put their shoulders and head down, but keep holding their bum up until they settle, then slowly lower their bum to the mattress.
Last night, Luca was pretty restless. For over an hour, he flailed his arms and moved his body about once a minute. There was no way I could sleep through that! I got up and used the bathroom, figuring he was so lightly asleep, that would probably wake him up. But when I returned he was still--completely asleep.
Any of you who cosleep, do your babies do anything like that? I've been placing a blanket between us, to hold him from just rolling into me all night. He already sleeps with his head in my armpit. He's such a bed hog!
carey
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You want my DH to scare some sense into him? He is a polysomnography technologist (aka sleep tech) and is pretty dang good at scaring people into getting sleep studies... 
The things he's told me... scary stuff. Scary.
Oh and I hear ya on the 4am boobie fest. I've started having Sora cosleep with me from that time on because I can't handle getting up out of bed ever half hour anymore. I sleep like crap with a baby next to me but it allows me to be lazier at least. Oh, and she can't roll over while in bed with me, so I don't have to get up out of bed to "un-tip" her in her crib once she's rolled onto her belly and can't roll back. I find her drowsily upset in her crib around 3 - 4am every morning now ever since she learned how to roll. At least I get a laugh out of it every time...
Joanie- so is snoring ALWAYS indicative of an issue?
Here is what my DH says on the issue of snoring... He says snoring is almost always a sign of something else going on, usually a precursor (like a symptom) of something worsening. It's rare that snoring is just snoring for no reason and with no consequences. If the snoring is nasal, then it could just be a sinus issue or a deviated septum, etc. That is often easily correctable and not life threatening but should still be addressed because your sleep and that of your loved ones can be negatively affected from the snoring. (I've always been a mouth breather because I couldn't breathe through my nose much my entire life until I had a deviated septum repaired, and the mouth breathing led to worse snoring. It helped my sleep for sure to have it corrected but I still have other issues unfortunately.) If the snoring is coming from the throat, then it's definitely a sign of something more going on. That's when there are dangers involved. It could be a structural abnormality like a narrow airway, enlarged tongue, less than ideal physical structure issue due to genetics (some ethnicities more than others), other kinds of obstruction in the airway... My husband has a sleep disorder where he doesn't stop breathing (much) so it's not apnea but his snoring wakes him up a million times through the night, fragmenting his sleep. It's due to obstruction in the airway. He has to use a CPAP machine. For people who snore bad, if it isn't sleep apnea yet, it could turn into it if left untreated because I guess the muscles in the throat area weaken over time. And then when you have sleep apnea, you're at risk for a whole bunch of health problems... Your body won't function properly from lack of restorative sleep. Existing health problems can worsen. You can end up with diabetes, long term damage to the heart, high blood pressure, flat out have a heart attack in your sleep, etc. My husband has seen patients' oxygen levels go down so dangerously low during apneas that they had severe heart arrhythmias and could've gone into cardiac arrest right then and there. He's seen some CRAZY stuff... Smokers are in greater danger combined with sleep apnea. These problems aren't only isolated to overweight people either. My husband is pretty fit and has just always snored like crazy. It's worsened when he does gain weight, but it's not caused by the excess weight.
Of course, there are habits in our everyday lives that do make things worse too. Caffeine close to bedtime, alcohol consumption (big one), sleep aids... those often worsen snoring. I hate being next to my husband if he's had a few beers before bedtime! If you sleep on your back, you're much more likely to snore too. Sleeping on your side often helps immensely. It helps me for sure. I have to tell my husband to roll over to his side sometimes if he isn't wearing his CPAP and is snoring badly on his back.
Oh, and another interesting thing I thought I'd share. My DH has commented before that there's speculation in the sleep health field that obstructive sleep disorders are so rampant now because the last few generations have been bottle feeding babies more and more. The sucking motion while feeding at the breast is so important for properly developing throat muscles. It's one of the reasons I really want to keep breastfeeding as long as I can... Sleep disorders run in my family and Sora pretty much has a double whammy between my husband and I. If we can help her out by developing her throat muscles properly, I want to do it!
My DD snores and she nursed for 3 years. Thanks for the info.
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