Sunday, November 27, 2011

Swaddling - Round 2

When we brought Grady home from the hospital, we were swaddling him every night and after a week or so, he really didn't seem to care for it all that much.  He was always breaking his arms out and sleeping in 1-2 hour spurts through the night.  After a couple weeks, we switched to the sleep sacks and he would go 2-3 hours in between feedings through the night.  It wasn't great, but he has always gone right back to sleep after he finished eating, so I had gotten very used to that schedule.  Sometime around 5 or so weeks, I started putting him to sleep before I went to sleep and watched him on the monitor.  He is really easy to put to sleep most of the time - I usually nurse him until he falls asleep and sometimes I can move him to his bassinet without him waking up and other times he will wake up in the transfer, but will just wiggle around and "talk" to himself until he falls asleep.  After watching him on the monitor, though, I was noticing that he would often wake himself up by jerking and hitting himself in the face.  After seeing him do this repeatedly, I thought maybe swaddling him again might get him to sleep a little longer, but I never could have dreamt how much it would help.  Last Monday was the first time we swaddled him and he slept for 4.5 hours.  Tuesday night, 5.5 hours.  Every night since then, he has gone at least one stint of 5.5 - 6.5 hours and I just can't believe it!  While it is wonderful that he is sleeping for so long, I'm really not getting any more sleep, though, because I wake up in so much pain that I have no choice but to pump.  I wonder if I will always have to do this or if my body will just adjust to a different schedule?  He still only goes about 2 hours in between feedings during the day, but he is eating so much faster (usually only 10-15 minutes or so), which is wonderful.

1 comment:

  1. Wyatt eats every 2 hours during the day (still) but sleeps 11 hours at night. I wake up "full", but no more pain. I do remember it taking forever this time around, about 3 weeks (the first time he started sleeping longer) for my body to adjust. Once he started sleeping longer and longer, the only time I would wake up in pain was after a growth spurt.

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