New Routines

This has been quite a weekend with Joshua. On the upside, he began sitting forward while in his swing yesterday. The swing was in the seat position, not the recline, and he was leaning into the tray. Won't be long before he is sitting on his own!

We had started to get into a pattern of Joshua going to bed around 7:30pm-8:00 that was interrupted by New Years but he got back into it early in the week. Then Thursday and Friday he decided to fight sleeping so he screamed until nearly midnight and then woke up for his usually nightly feedings and got up for the day around 6:00-6:30. Needless to say, everyone was tired and no one was happy. He finally went down on Saturday for a 3.5 hour nap in the late afternoon. Jason and I scoured the books, magazines and even internet support groups for help on sleeping, sleep routines, bedtime, ect. We decided to really try a bedtime routine on Saturday and stick to it.

Joshua knew we were up to something. We changed him and laid him in his co-sleeper at 9:30pm. As soon as he hit that bed, he started screaming. Jason read him two bedtime stories through the screaming and turned on his lullabye music. He continued to scream. Jason played peek-a-boo with him until he started to settle down. Then on one peek, Jason ducked below the bed so Josh couldn't see him, we both snuck out and Joshua feel asleep. He did his night time routine of feedings and woke at 8:30, not bad.

He took a nap in his co-sleeper at 10:30, one in the car at 1pm and a long one starting around 3:30-5:15 with me. So again tonight we started our bedtime routine. He fell asleep while eating but at 9pm we went up, changed him and laid him in his crib. Mind you, he was already sleeping when we did this. But, he woke up and screamed until 10:15. That was when Jason, despite valiant efforts, gave up. He lasted longer than I would have!! When I went in for my turn, Joshua had worked himself hungry so I fed him, he fell asleep and I put him to bed. He is still asleep, now and I am off to bed.

We will try again tomorrow. But to our credit (mostly Jason's) we didn't leave the bedroom, we didn't turn on the lights and we stuck to our guns that it was bedtime. So, maybe Joshua will learn.