Boone-Buddy, you've been busted!

So we're at a bit of a crossroads with our little man related to night time sleep. We've had a bit of a start-and-stop time related to his night time sleep, as a function of different issues he's had along the way. Around 6 weeks he started sleeping for about 6-7 hours at a time at night and we thought we were on a good course for working towards sleeping uninterrupted through the night. I'd read the book Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Baby before Piper was born and really liked their approach to getting them to sleep through the night. I planned to use the same for Boone, and thought we were on the right track.

Then he started having reflux to the point where he'd throw up most of his feedings at all feedings. And it was made much worse by him laying on his back, so he was sleeping upright at night in his bouncy chair. I still worried about him spitting up and choking at night (while I know it's pretty unlikely, I still worried). So when he'd wake up, I or Ger would go to check on him, make sure he was ok (sometimes have an outfit change if he'd had a bad spit up) and put the paci back in his mouth. This happened several time a night. Then we got the reflux issue figured out (after multiple tries at different meds) and things went back to more sound sleep for us all. And we started making more progress again with sleep (which made Ger and I very excited). Again, we thought we were on the right track, then foiled again.

A couple weeks after that Boone got the RSV virus which was a scary thing. This required daily trips to the pediatrician's office for pulse ox tests to test his oxygen saturation levels and to listen to his lungs to check for wheezing and any other strange noises. Again, this led to concern, particularly at night as this is when his cough would get worse. And we were given instructions to call our doctor's after hours on-call service or just go directly to the hospital if things changed during the night with his breathing (basically if anything changed in-between our daily morning check-ups). So this also led to lots of checks at night, as he was coughing a lot, and again we'd check him and if ok, we'd put the paci back in his mouth...repeat several times a night. You get the picture. We continued doing daily treatments with the nebulizer for him, and slowly things got better over about a two week period. And we felt very fortunate that he only had a mild version of this, things could have been much more serious and we were thankful that they were not.

So once we got through this, again we started to get back on track with uninterrupted sleep again, but we started to notice that the first part of the night was fine (from 6:30ish until midnight or 1am), but the second part of the night he seemed to be very restless and needed LOTS of paci reapplications. He was starting to eat less during his one feeding he had left during the night, maybe only one ounce at the most, and we decided to try him without it. His restlessness during the second half of the night (from midnight until 6am) still persisted whether he ate a tiny snack of not. During this time we also did away with him sleeping in the bouncey seat (reflux is much better), and again, it seemed to make little difference in his night-time activities whether he was in it or not. So we gave him the benefit of the doubt for a week or two to see if he could work things out, but then (ok, so every story needs a dramatic turning point, so here goes)...

This past Sunday night, we figured out once and for all we were being played and toyed with by our 3 1/2 month old!!!! That smart little cookie figured out through all these little bouts of things along the way that if he spit his paci out and wanted it back, all he had to do was cry a bit and POOF, Mommy or Daddy magically appeared in his room for a little reassurance and put it back in. It was a pretty sweet deal for him. And he was testing this little discovery quite often.

So back to the Sunday night epiphany...during this one night between midnight and 6am Boone woke up for his paci between 8-10 times (a one night record-his personal best, if you will!). And during two of the times I got up to put it back in, he had his eyes wide awake and was smiling so big at me he couldn't even keep the paci in his mouth! He was just excited to see someone and was letting me know. So with bags under our eyes and in a half zombie state, Ger and I decided at the breakfast table Monday morning, that we were going to initiate Operation Ban the Night-Time Paci starting that night.

So we set the pack-n-play up just off our room, one the other side of the house from Piper's room (so we could hear him but his crying wouldn't wake her up) and made a pact that we weren't going to cave that night when he cried and would encourage him to put himself back to sleep (so much easier said than done). So he got his last bottle that night and when we put him down we did so without the paci. He fussed a little, but never cried and put himself to sleep fairly quickly! Yeah, success number 1.

We later went to bed that night and again reaffirmed our pact to not give the paci back during the night and went off to sleep. He didn't wake up until 2am that night and when he did he started to cry. We let him cry and waited. I did go in a few times, a la Ferber method of reassurance, to pat his belly and just let him know I was there. It took him 45 minutes but he did put himself back to sleep. I almost caved around 30 minutes, but am so glad I did not. And then he slept soundly until 6:30am!!!!

Night two was much the same, except this time he slept from 6:30pm until 3am, this time cried off and on for 30 minutes and slept until 6:30am.

Night three, he slept from 6:30pm-5am, cried off and on for 15 minutes and we woke him up at 6:30am to start getting ready for the day.

Last night, he slept from 6:30pm until 5:15am, fussed for maybe a minute or two and then slept until 6:30am.

Yeah, success. We hope this will continue as he is sleeping the soundest he has since we brought him home and Ger and I are getting some much needed uninterrupted sleep. Things like this sound so good in theory, but are much harder to put into practice (the saying this hurts me more than it hurts you has new meaning). I'm glad we stayed consistent, as I think it is more than paying off. Good-bye night-time paci, you've been a complicated friend and we're ready to let you go!