More Sleep

So, after the newborn stage...it got easy...then way more tricky.  At first it was fine. Leroy started waking up only once a night by the time he was 2 months old (he would sleep from 7-about 2 or 3, then sleep until 7 or 8) which was GREAT after getting up multiple times a night for a couple months (I know, quit whining, right? I agree). I swear the difference between getting up twice a night and only once a night to feed him was life-changing and awesome. I was definitely continuing the process of keeping the lights out and no talking or eye contact with Leroy at night, and he was amazingly pretty much going right back to sleep after he was done with his bottle all the time. We were still swaddling at this point (yay swaddle!). For a minute around 3 months I think I decided I wanted to transition him out of the swaddle, but it seemed like he wasn't sleeping the long stretches he was before, so I went back to it was was loving it again. I think I finally stopped at about 4 1/2 months when he was really just too strong for the velcro swaddle blankets and he would pop out of it right away.

I will say that for a little while we were using his baby swing a LOT. When he was first born he slept in it all the time. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but I was really sick when I went into labor (horrendous, phlegm producing coughing, super stuffy nose, no energy, etc.), so, there was not really any way to avoid Leroy getting the same awful sickness on...oh, day 2 of life. So even though it seemed like we were constantly trying to clear his nose out, it was still super clogged. It seemed like sleeping on an incline in the swing helped a lot, so that's where he slept. I did get him out of his swing and into a bassinet (it had a little vibrate button you could press on it so that he would still get some movement to soothe him to sleep initially) after the worst of the sickness was over at night...but naps stayed in the swing. In retrospect, maybe I should have transitioned him to napping in the bassinet, then the crib at the same time, but I didn't. Oops. Sleep crutch. More on that later.

During the day I really wanted to get on a by-the-clock schedule. I paid attention to when he seemed to get sleepy during the day for about a week and then started trying to steer him toward napping at the same times everyday until nap time was really nap time. He would wake up around 7 or 8, then his first nap was at 9:30 or 10 when I would put him in the BOB stroller we have and go for a walk/jog (since I was also feeling really gross about the size I still was, which rationally I know was totally normal, blah, blah blah), then nap number two was at 1. and this was very reliable at this time. Sometimes his first nap would be really long (i.e. 2-2 1/2 hours), but he would still want his 1 o'clock nap. Then he would nap again I think at 3:30 or 4 and this last one was in his vibrating bouncy chair and was a little more difficult. If I'm remembering right I think we would usually have to bounce him while letting him suck on one of our fingers. But, he was napping. And even now, as long as Leroy gets his sleep, he is a happy baby.