How My Lovely Partner Ended Up On the Crib Mattress

Sunshine used to be an excellent sleeper. As a newborn she slept in four hour stretches at night and we woke her to feed her. Gradually she slept more and more until she regularly slept 7-9 hour stretches by 2 months. We knew we were lucky. I didn't want to focus on comparing her to other babies, but I was a little proud when other parents were amazed. I told people "In the Baby Olympics, sleep is her best event." I took her sleep habits as validation of our co-sleeping/attachment-parenting leaning ways. Her crib stood unused in the room down the hall.

And then, all the sudden, she hit a slump. It happened pretty much went I went back to work. First she slept in two hour stretches. We thought she must have had a stomachache or something like that. But she seemed fine. She would wake up and nurse and then fall back asleep. I thought it might be "reverse cycling" to make up for the time I was away at work. But she didn't seem particularly hungry when she nursed. Then she slept in one hour stretches. Then it was forty-five minutes stretches. During the day, she was still mostly cheerful and alert, but I can't say the same for me and my Lovely Partner. One morning, Lovely expressed her outrage at People: "When People say that it gets easier after three months, they LIE!"

However, worse then being up all night was worrying something was wrong. I thought maybe she was traumatized because I went back to work. Or that she hit some developmental block.

So I got on the internet and researched, as I am wont to do. I found out there is another thing called "Four Month Sleep Regression" where a good sleeping baby just stops sleeping well at about four months. Who knew? (Maybe ya'll did) In any case, from my reading we are just supposed to stick it out. So I attempted to calm down and keep on...mothering. We tried to think of things to help her (and us) sleep.

One problem is that she, my very big baby, outgrew her co-sleeper. And when she sleeps on the bed with us, she doesn't seem to have enough room either. She flails and hits us and wakes herself (and us) up. We thought we could move her crib into our bedroom. We would drop down the bar a little and keep her close to the bed. Unfortunately, we forgot the rule guiding our life which is "If we purchase something big, it will not work for us in some way." The crib, built in the nursery, was too big to go through the door. We decided to take it apart and rebuild this weekend. In the meantime we thougt we would just put the crib mattress on the floor next to our bed and see how that works.

So the other night I walk into our bedroom and see Lovely crashed asleep in our bed and Sunshine happily laying on the mattress on the floor, looking up at me smiling. I realized this would not work either because she moves too much and would fall off the mattress.

So Lovely suggested that for the time being, the baby and I should sleep on our queen size bed, where I can nurse her when needed throughout the night. Lovely decided she could sleep on the baby's crib mattress next to our bed. I should point out that while Lovely is not tall, she is much taller then your average crib user. However, last night my baby and I slept on our bed, and my Lovely Partner slept on the crib mattress next to us on the floor. This morning, Lovely said it was the best night's sleep she's had in a while.