crib wars

After all the searching and researching, the money my parents spent and all the time it took to put it together  -Malakai would not sleep in his crib. Not at night, not for naps.

Since he was born he's preferred to sleep in mama & daddy's bed. I'm not complaining about this part, I've loved having him sleep with us. However, lately he's not been sleeping so soundly with us and he always gets so sweaty. Ben and I have both read up on co-sleeping/bed-sharing/whateveryouwanttocallit. It's possible that sometimes it can cause restlessness in children. Where he used to sleep best with us, we've now been having him sleep in his swing next to our bed (where he usually naps).

When I took this photo, about three weeks before Kai's birthday, I never thought that he'd sleep in the swing to the right more than the crib!


We've got some use out of the crib. When little Henry comes over he'll occasionally nap there. But he too has been on a crib strike (at my house anyway) and I've had to put him down in the swing or his carseat! You'd think there was something wrong with this crib, the one we thought was so perfect for our little nursery when we were putting it all together.

This past weekend, we decided to tough it out and just keep putting him back in the crib. No matter how many times he woke up we were determined to get him to sleep in the crib for longer than his 30 minute cat naps.

Saturday night was our first go and I honestly can't keep track of how many times we were both up soothing him back to sleep, but I think his longest stretch of sleep was 2 hours. We were pretty excited about that measly little 120 minutes.

He also napped for at least two hours on Sunday in his crib... this is just UNHEARD OF!

Daddy always puts Malakai down to sleep. On "work nights" if he wakes between whenever we went to bed and before midnight daddy is pretty much still on duty. If it's later than that, I get up and let Ben sleep. Other times when we've tried to get him down in his crib, he keeps waking up and Ben usually just brings him to bed so we can all get some sleep. Honestly, I'd stay up all night with him if it would help...but Malakai wasn't getting any sleep either and that was my main concern.

Last night was our second try and he was hard to get down at first, but he usually is. He'll fake-out and sleep for 30-60 minutes sometimes and then wake up every time you set him down. He did a bit of this and Ben kept soothing him back to sleep from about 9pm to 10pm.

Kai woke up again at 11:15pm and I got up (Ben doesn't get up once he's fallen asleep unless I shake him) and soothed him to sleep. We didn't hear from him again til 2am! THREE HOURS! I got up and fed him, he fell asleep eating and was back down by 2:25am til just before 6am this morning! MIRACULOUS! It's like something just clicked and he decided the crib is an okay place to be.

At 6am Ben was getting up for work. He went to check on Kai and he was laying awake just looking around quietly and grinned big at daddy when he spotted him. Ben brought Kai to me in bed, I fed him and we both fell back asleep. I was kind of glad to do it this way so I still got my cuddle time with my sweet boy this morning.

I'd bedshare forever if I could, but once Malakai's sleep was getting interrupted, that's when we decided it was really time to get him in his crib. Plus, Ben's sleep patterns are a bit erratic. He walks and talks in his sleep on occasion so I have to sleep very lightly to make sure he doesn't move and harm our little guy.

So- here's hoping that he continues to sleep soundly and happily in his crib and that mama can get some sleep without her little cuddle bug.