Getting better all the time

So Jack's been killing us with the sleep thing (how novel, right? A blog entry about a newborn keeping his parents up at night! Next thing I'll be telling you that we have a lot of laundry to do, or that there are toys all over the floor these days! Crazy.)

And I get to say that he's killing US with the sleep thing because this time Stewart's on paternity leave, so I'm not sleeping somewhere else in order to let him get his sleep before work the next day. He may not have to nurse Jack when he wakes, but I'll be damned if I'm the only one getting woken up with the crying.

So anyway, he cries a lot at night. He wakes up and cries a lot at night, often mere seconds after he's been nursed, swaddled, and put back in his comfy bassinet. A few nights ago I was actually crying and saying "I don't know what to do" over and over. I think I actually banged my fist on the bed a few times.

I tried almost everything. Swaddled, swaddled in a bouncy seat, swaddled in his carseat, and on and on. He mostly liked to sleep on us, or in our arms, or lying next to us, which made me crazy nervous. I padded the bassinet to make it more comfy. No luck.

A few days ago I tried letting him sleep on his side, which was tough with the swaddle. He did okay. So two nights ago I tried letting him sleep on his side without the swaddle, and he finally started doing some short stretches of sleep - two and a half hours was the longest, but I can work with anything longer than an hour. Last night he went two hours, nursed, one hour, nursed, two hours, nursed and fussy for about 45 minutes, and then another 2 hours. I can totally work with that.

He wakes up for the "day" around 7, and has a nice long awake stretch until at least 9. Then napping off and on throughout the day, and another long awake stretch in the evening - last night it was 7 - 10. Then off to "bed." It's the beginning of a routine, and that makes me very very happy.

Well done, baby.