I have written about how we were co-sleeping part time and Capri sleeping in her pack and play next to my bed and now I have to write about the move. Today is Monday and last Wednesday Stefan decided we should move Capri into her nursery.
Let me sidetrack for a moment to say I use the word nursery in the loosest form possible. It is our spare room that happens to have all of her stuff in it but not very organized. My dream when we move is to actually decorate a room for her. But I digress.
So Stefan suggests we move her because the last week or so before the big move she had been waking up every hour to two hours (instead of the normal 3-4 hours) and I feed on demand which resulted in a very tired mommy and baby. We realized that she can go longer periods of not eating (in fact she went 5.5 hours on that Wednesday night in the evening) so she should be able to be okay in her own room.
Stefan said for the first night I could feed her at midnight and then again at 4am. If she cried before that he would go in and make sure she was okay and giver her the soother if she needed it. He knew that if I went in I would just end up feeding her. So that is what we did. She was up a fair amount but Stefan dealt with it and she was fine. I however stared down our baby monitors that we were using for the first time (the staring would have worked better if they were monitors with a web-cam but instead I stared at a red blinking light). In the morning she was up fairly early and would not go back to sleep so we brought her into our room and I got to cuddle with her for a few more hours and sleep.
She has now been in her own room for 5 nights. I am feeling less of the mommy guilt and only think I am abandoning her a little. She still comes into our room in the mornings for the last hour or more of sleep which I am perfectly okay with.
When we move into our new place (where ever and whenever that may be) I told Stefan I really want a comfy chair (not a rocking chair) in the nursery for when I feed her because I always fall asleep. Currently I am feeding her on the spare bed we have and cuddling up with my giant gorilla Eddie (Stefan doesn’t like him because he says Eddie stares at him). But he works as a great cushion while I feed Capri.
Just so you know it’s normal for babies her age to eat more at night, or more frequently through the day. They get so distracted by things and moving and sounds and such that nursing session are usually shorter and spaced further appart through the day, so they make up for what they missed by taking more at night when there are less distractions. Getting her to nurse longer/more often through the day might help you both get more sleep.
We went kind of in and out of co-sleeping. Every single morning, though, he would come in with us and cuddle for an hour or so. I LOVED it! It’s still hard sometimes because I love when he’s cuddled up to me and I can smell his somewhat sweaty head and feel his soft hair against my cheek! It’s pure bliss! When he’s sick he sleeps with me but it usually lasts longer, even though he’s better, just because it’s hard to break from it!