Wakey, wakey! Eggs and Bakey!OK, so since the night before i began work again, the boys have been pretty darn good sleepers. Except for the last week or so. Honestly, Curt has borne the brunt of this since I'm so tired from pumping in the middle of the night that I often don't hear the cries for pacifier returns, etc. He's noticed a pattern developing with the boys that they are waking up every couple of hours with short cries. once we go in and give a pacifier back or flip them over they fall asleep and we won't hear from them for a couple of hours. This usually happens between 3 and 4 am with one or all boys and can begin again between 5 and 6 am. ouch.
Because they share a room, of course, we have been MUCH more likely to check on them than to just ignore it since we don't want them to wake their brothers! man are they stubborn. It's 3:30 AM and Aidan has been crying with these caterwauling cries (one whiny one every few seconds) for nearly an hour now. we are pretty sure if we give a pacifier or flip him over he will go back to sleep - at least for a few hours, but we are reading a book that considers this "positive reinforcement", and most of the other stuff in this book has been completely accurate. As you can probably guess, curt and i are up in the middle of the night and at our wit's end. and then of course, Gavin was woken up and began crying too. double ouch. once Aidan finally fell asleep around 4 AM, Brady began a whiny cry. Even though the doors in this place muffle sound pretty well, for some reason our bedroom door will not close any longer and curt has had to put in ear plugs. this is by far one of our worst nights and i hope this "extinction crying" (shout out to all of you Dr. Weissbluth fans!) will work quickly - i don't think either of us can take it for too long!
The good part about last night's marathon crying session was 1) they were still very happy to see us in the morning and 2) they went down VERY easily for their naps. they were a little bit crankier the rest of the time (so were we), but they were pretty solid little sleepers when they were napping. Shock of all shocks, I re-read our sleep book and it talks about the naps being too long (guess I shouldn't read in the middle of the night while I'm exhausted and pumping) and how that can interfere with night sleep. hmmm . . . so we shortened the afternoon nap on saturday and tried to go out to dinner with the boys after some shopping. Let's just say, I think brady ACTUALLY melted down in the restaurant. thank goodness it was just an american chain and we were by ourselves near the window or we might have been thrown out. Me holding him and rocking him didn't get him to stop - little punk. HOWEVER - they have slept really well the last two nights . . . let's hope this pattern sticks . . .
