Will He Ever Sleep?

Since he was born Lucas has never been the best sleeper. In fact, to put it bluntly, most nights he just sucks! I’ve tried just about everything to get him to sleep but nothing seems to work. At first I thought it was just because he was a newborn, that he hadn’t figured out his own internal clock yet so I just dealt with it during maternity leave. Since I’m nursing I’m the one that got up in the night with him because more often than not he needed to eat. But as he’s gotten older, I thought he’d need to eat less often, but nope – my kid eats the same number of times per day that he always had, he’s just eating more ounces.

Every time I think we may have broken out of the cycle, it’s just a tease. He’ll give us three or four solid hours, a few times he’s even given us six or eight, but then the very next night it’s back to being up every two to three. The part I really don’t understand is that he’s not sleeping at daycare either. They send home his “report card” every day and his naps range from 10-25 minutes at the very most. I’m beginning to think he’s a zombie or something! He just doesn’t sleep.

After three months of this I started hitting my wall. Because when he doesn’t sleep, neither do I; I’m averaging maybe 4 hours total sleep a night. I began to cry every time he’d wake up. I’d nurse him, swaddle him and try to put him back down but he’d just scream and scream. I started waking up Brian and making him do the rocking/bouncing after I’d fed him just so I could try to get even 20 minutes. I would beg Lucas to close his eyes, ask him why he hates me so much and just pray to God he’d calm down. Eventually  after being walked around, shown the “guy” in the mirror (he loves looking at himself), and shushed he passes out … only to wake up again two hours later to do it all again.

We were able to determine right around Thanksgiving that part of why he wasn’t sleeping was because the poor baby had an ear infection. Because he was already on an antibiotic for his kidney the doctor decided to just up the dose. He was on Septra for 10 days and at the end of those ten days he still wasn’t any better. We went back to the doctor and they determined that his single ear infection had turned into a double and then put him on Amoxicillin. Ten days after we started that prescription he still wasn’t any better and the doctor put him on Augmentin. During all this time it was very difficult to get him to sleep or nap lying on his back because of the pressure it would put on his ears. He slept the best being held, rocked or propped up in a swing. So needless to say the last 30 days have been probably the most difficult when it comes to sleep. We just had his 4 month check-up yesterday (post  coming) and luckily for us the ear infection is gone! No more medicine for that! Woohoo! But regardless, it still hasn’t helped in the sleeping department.

As usual when I’m at a loss of what to do I ask my go-to’s. And per their advice, I’ve swaddled him, let him sleep in just his diaper, we’ve co-slept, we’ve tried to let him cry it out for a few minutes, I’ve fed him a TON before putting him down … nothing works! My sister-in-law recommended the Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit. She says Ethan sleeps 8-10 hours a night in the suit! He’s 6 weeks older than L, weighs a pound more than him and eats roughly the same number of bottles and ounces of milk per day. She told me about the suit months ago when she first bought it, more because she was anxious to try it, but now that we’re having such difficulty she recommended it again. So I ordered it, and it should be delivered today! I am so excited to try it, I hope that it’s a good solution to our problems because if not I have no idea what else to try/do!

Every day I tell myself, I need to nap when I get home from work. Even if it’s just an hour while he plays with Gigi I need to do it, and every day I don’t. By the time I get home I have to unpack our bags from the day, wash his bottles, prep them for the next day, change out of my work clothes, plan what we are going to wear the next day and get supper ready. By the time that’s all said and I done I feel guilty asking my mother to watch him for even another minute so the nap goes out the window. I think eventually one of two things is going to happen; either I’ll just get so used to not sleeping I won’t need it anymore or I’ll hit the end and become narcoleptic. Unfortunately for me, it’ll more likely be the former and per Murphy’s Law that’ll be right around the time Lucas starts sleeping through the night! Just my luck!

Please keep your fingers crossed for me that this sleepsuit really is magic! I’ll review it for you all in a few days!

Sleep tight!