Barnabas Monkeypants

As much as the weekend wasn’t the best (not terrible, mind you; just not great), yesterday was amazing. The fussiness (which Henry still has) has diminished, and he was actually able to sleep for extended periods of time not in either Kristen or my arms. He did so well, in fact, that we tried out a new nighttime routine that hopefully will go on until he’s able to sleep through the night.

At 8:45, with her exhausted, I made Kristen go to bed. Armed with 2 1/2 oz of “Kristenale” (patent pending), I fed him and rocked him and burped him and rubbed his tummy until we went to bed at around midnight. Although he woke up soon after (he was still hungry; not enough Kristenale for him, I suppose), it at least made me comfortable enough to know that I can take care of him without Kristen having to be close by at all times, which will allow us to both have a longer stretch of uninterrupted sleep.

As it is now, we put Henry to bed at around 9:00 or 9:30 and he wakes up every three hours or so (until 6:30 when he’s up for good). We both wake up with him, Kristen to feed, me to change the diaper (both pre-feeding and mid-feeding). This means that although we’re in the bedroom for a good 9 hours, we sleep for no more than 3 hours at a time. Even if we end up with a cumulative 8 hours of sleep (on a good night), when it’s broken up with several awake times, it is neither refreshing nor rejuvenating. So, when we stumble out of bed for good in the morning, we’re both exhausted.

Now our plan (one which we’ve stolen from about every other parent in America) is to have Kristen get at least 6 straight hours (from 9 to 3) and then another 2 or so after and me to get 6 straight as well (from 12:30 to 6:30).

While 6 hours is not ideal, it’s still an improvement.

Now all we have to do is figure out why he’s so darn gassy. (Oh, wait… he’s a Cheli.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Barnabas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.