In the nicest possible way, Lara, and I'm sure he's a lovely man, but DH needs a bit of a reality check. You have a *baby*. He will not be independent until... well.... DH might not want to know about 5 yos needing cuddles to get to sleep sometimes, or 3 yos waking in the night, but these are the things that happen in real life. Your baby needs his parents, and he will need them in awkward and displeasing ways (like the middle of the night, for no apparent reason) on and off for years to come. What's more, the best way to foster independence in a young child, even a baby, is to meet those needs. A child who feels secure is more likely to act secure, if you get me.
for him the ideal situation would be: bath, jammies, put into crib and leave and the baby would go to sleep by himself.
Yes, that would be the ideal, wouldn't it?
But a touchy refluxer is unlikely to do that, and so are most babies I know. They need human contact and intervention in their little lives. And will keep needing it til they're 18! But hopefully not to get to sleep
At the same time, I think there's a spectrum of 'baby reasonable' and 'baby unreasonable'. 1 NW is great! 7 NWs would be unreasonable and we'd need to try to do something about it. Right now, LO is firmly on the reasonable end of the spectrum
As regards him being in his own room, and without being alarmist, I would say please check the SIDS recommendations where you are. You must do what is right for your family, but the recommendation here in the UK is that babies should share a room at least for the first six months. For us, we had LOs in a cot in our room til well past a year and we swapped the adult sleeping arrangement around to whatever suited that day/week/month, sometimes both of us, sometimes one of us. TBH, I asked OH to sleep in another room when LO2 was born, when the NWs were most frequent in the first six weeks or so, and it worked beautifully.
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/reducing-risk-cot-death.aspxBack to your routine. I think what you did this morning was spot on. You've got to do what you need to get through, snuggling in bed in the early morning and both having a doze is fine, imo. The thing is, you're avoiding OT (for both of you) and that's a good plan in itself.
Have a look at this link and see if it helps at all - just average A times - at 4 mos you'd be looking at 1 hr 45 to 2 hrs, though he's maybe closer to 5 mos now?
Average A times- BOOKMARK ME! His A times are looking a bit variable to me.
On day 1 your As are 2 hr 20, 2 hr 40, then 1 hr 40 (did he fall asleep then? or was this planned? if planned then I would push this A time). Then he conks out and does a good night. On day 2, it's 2 hr 15, 2 hr 20, then 2 hr 40.
In fact, both days look fine and day two in particular looks very good to me. Getting that longer nap in the middle of the day will make a difference for him, as he'll be better rested, but just tired enough to get a bit of a sleep later. At about 5 mos, you're moving into reducing the cat nap territory, 30/40 mins might be all he needs. Around 6 mos most babies will drop that CN altogether, you see, and you'll just have two naps.
Specifically, for that first nap on day 1, I sort of 'hear' you sounding a bit 'agh! he woke up!' but overall he did a nap of 1 hr 10 minutes. It could be that his sleep cycle is 35 mins, and if it is, then he did two cycles and woke up ready to go.
My touchy LO needed his paci/soother to relax and sleep. He's 5 yo now (no more paci, in case you're worried!) but he still needs a comfort item sometimes. I think the key thing is to make the difference in your mind between a prop and a comfort item. For us, the paci was never a prop. He needed it, but we never had to wake up to replug it, not once, because he never woke up because he lost it, iyswim. So it helped him, and caused us no issues, so we left him with it. If you think the paci is waking him up in any way, then I would consider trying to get rid of it, but if not, I wouldn't worry. I don't think it's a bad thing in itself. Others might differ. If you do want to get rid of the paci, right now or in the future, I would go with 'gentle removal'.
Gentle Removal PlanLots of babies stir around 5 am, it's totally normal. Sometimes they wake right up, because they are hungry due to a GS or whatever. But is he actually waking at that time? I remember lying stock still in bed trying not to breathe too loudly so that they'd settle back to sleep (silly me!) but that did work a lot of the time. If you think he might settle back down, try to resist the urge to intervene. If you can settle him in the cot, do! Gentle hands on might work. But don't beat yourself up for getting both of you back to sleep til 7.
That's a bit of an essay! In a nutshell, I honestly don't see that much wrong here
hope that's a helpful thing to say.
