Sleeping

Carter's sleeping habits have really changed a lot in the last few weeks.

Carter's naps are finally getting longer. Hopefully that doesn't change now that I'm writing about them! I've been working on getting him to take two naps a day. He usually takes one about 3 hours after getting up and then a second one in the middle of the afternoon (around 2 or 3pm). And they usually last at least an hour (sometimes the afternoon nap is closer to 2 hours).

This depends though on us being home at the right times. If I'm not walking with Sarah in the morning, I usually go running with Carter. Unless I get out early, Carter will fall asleep during the run so his first nap is short. Also, if we do walk with Sarah, Carter's nap is usually during our walk so it's short then too. So this will throw him off for the day. Sometimes I'll try to get him to take a third nap and other times I just end up with a cranky, tired kid that doesn't want to sleep. Also, if we're running errands during the day, sometimes Carter will fall asleep while we're out or while I'm driving. But I try really hard to know when he's getting tired and be home so he can get a good nap.

Carter does well taking naps in his crib now. I usually will rock him in the glider in his room for 5-10 minutes before putting him down for a nap. He is pretty much always falling asleep in my arms before I lay him down in his crib. This weekend though I put him down fully awake and he only cried for about a minute before falling asleep. I've tried that a couple more times and he wasn't having it and I eventually went back into his room and rocked him. We're going to work on this though.

Getting Carter to bed at night has really changed over the last few weeks. He used to always fall asleep on me when I nursed him before bed and I'd just put him down in his crib asleep. Suddenly a couple of weeks ago he stopped falling asleep. So I've been rocking him in the glider for just a couple of minutes after feeding him and then putting him in his crib awake. At first he was crying it out for 30 minutes but it's been getting shorter and shorter. The last few nights he'll only cry for about 10 seconds. I still feel terrible when I close his door and he cries, but I know he's fine.

Also, Carter used to wake up every 30-60 minutes for a few hours after going to bed when he used to fall asleep on me. Now that he's going to sleep on his own in his crib, he's pretty much dropped this habit.

I probably shouldn't write this because I'm going to jinx myself, but Carter has been sleeping through the night for the last 4 nights. He goes to bed around 7:45pm and gets up around 6am. He's still waking up at night (usually around 3 or 4am), but he's been going back to sleep pretty quickly. I really hope he continues to sleep through the night!

I think Carter still needs more sleep than he's getting, but at least he's getting a little more than he used to.

I stressed for a long time that I was really messing up Carter's sleeping habits by letting him fall asleep on me every night, but it seems like it's all working out (and the transition has been easy). I'm glad I didn't force anything before Carter or I was ready.