Bob, I Lost the Baby

Abigail’s still averaging two feedings a night. Generally there’s one somewhere in the 11:30pm – 1:30am time frame (depending on how early she goes down), then another around 3:30am. After the 3:30am feeding, she’ll sleep anywhere from three to five hours. She always/only sleeps in the swing.

After hearing this, some friends recommended we go back to swaddling her. In their experience, it’s the swaddle that keeps them asleep for extended periods of time.

Great idea! We’ll try it. Maybe this is what we need to also get her sleeping in her crib?

Yes. She actually has a crib, but since it doesn’t move (like most things she prefers), we’ve had a hard time figuring out how to implement it.

As it approached the 9:30 bedtime, we began our preparations. New to our arsenal is a docking station for Jen’s iPhone. With this we can play sleep sounds all night and at volume (The sleep sound thingies we’ve used so far only played 45 minutes at most.).  We turned it on and cranked up a nice wind and stream sound (w/ intermittent mosquito – ah the woods!).

Abigail immediately took notice. Cool. We’re started off in the right direction!

Now time for the swaddle. Instead of using a blanket she could escape from and get herself tied up into, we opted for a swaddle specific velcro-able device.

1. Tuck in the first arm, show an unhappy face.
2. Tuck in the second arm, start to scream.
3. Velcro it shut, scream like mad!
4. Scream like bloody mad.
5. Struggle, squirm, and scream so that Mommy comes to the rescue.

But Daddy’s quicker. Daddy sits down on the exercise ball and starts a vigorous bounce. Abigail pretends not to notice and continues her “Can’t anybody see I’m dying here?” screaming. Daddy continues to bounce. Looks at the clock. It’s 9:23pm. How long will this last?

The bouncing continues, but the screaming starts to subside. Abigail turns her head in disgust. Her bottom lip is pushed out as far as it will go. Lightly she struggles to move, but mostly she’s just pissed. Then slowly, very slowly – in an effort so that Daddy doesn’t notice – her eyes start to close.

Whup! They’re back open! Then again slowly – verrry slowly, they close and stay closed. Daddy bounces another five minutes just to be sure, then puts her tiny little body down in her huge crib.

Nice work! Only took ten to fifteen minutes at most.

So that was my part. I got her swaddled and in the crib around 9:30. She awoke (like usual) shortly before midnight. Not bad really. We weren’t expecting miracles. We were happy to achieve the same results, but with all different players (i.e. the crib and swaddle over the swing and blanket draped across her lap). Jen says she ate quick and went back to sleep easily, though this time back in the swing.

The next waking (little longer span from the first than usual) was interesting. I think it was somewhere between 3:30 and 4am. We heard the cries through the monitor. Waited a little to make sure she was really awake and not going back to sleep. Jen got up and went to the bathroom, then came back and started rummaging through the sheets of our bed. It wasn’t a frantic rummage, but rummaging with purpose. As calmly as you’d never expect Jen says,

“Bob, I lost the baby.”

Now the rummaging makes sense. In the same calm manner I say,”No you didn’t. She’s in the other room.”

“Oh.” and Jen leaves for the second feeding as I doze back to sleep. The second feeding was quick and easy too. Jen was in and out and Abigail slept four hours afterwords (in the swing with blanket).

Two interesting things to note. The baby monitors are crazy life-like. Obviously it’s a microphone to pick up the sound in one room and a speaker to emit the sound in another, but it seems to intensify the sounds so they’re “larger than life” on the receiving end. This is obviously helpful when sleeping and listening for the subtle sounds of a baby (though the sounds of a waking baby aren’t so subtle). What’s whacky – as described above – it can sound like the baby is actually in the room with you – especially when half asleep yourself. For me it was the baby monitor intensified wind sound that had me confused all night. Only loud enough to occupy Abigail’s thoughts with white noise, via the monitor it sounded like a full on cyclone blowing in her room. I kept waking thinking I’d find Abigail freezing in her room – all huddled in the corner and shivering while diapers and blankets blew about the windy room. I’d have to convince myself she was fine and picture her sleeping comfortably in her crib without as much as a single hair moving before I could fall back to sleep.

All in all a pretty good night for Abigail. She got something close to nine hours of sleep, which is real close to her daily average.

Jen and I on the other-hand, still plugging along.

– b