1 Mother 2 Another

Cora is in the midst of the most horrible
stage right now – for whatever reason, the kid can’t
sleep. Which means neither can I.


When we went for our two-month visit, I proudly told the doctor
Cora was often sleeping 10-5 uninterrupted. She was suitably
impressed, and I thought there was nowhere to go but up. As babies
get older, their sleep naturally deepens, and I foresaw a full
night’s sleep in the very near future.


Alas for me, Cora didn’t get the memo.

Right at three months Cora (I’m
guessing) hit a developmental growth spurt. She began getting up
again several times a night, and not just closer to the end of the
sleep cycle. It’s been getting worse and worse and
we’re about at our wits’ ends. Cora clearly
doesn’t need to eat all the time – she doesn’t
act hungry or frantic. She simply wakes up, and can’t or
won’t go back to sleep.


We’ve been swaddling Cora since she was born, as we did
Maddie. We stopped swaddling Madeleine right around 10 weeks, but
there’s no way we can do that with Cora; half of what wakes
her up is her Moro reflex kicking in so she literally hits herself
in the face. I think her sleeping’s gotten worse because
she’s gotten bigger and stronger and can more easily kick out
of her swaddling blanket. So two hours after I’ve put her
down in a tight little cocoon, she’s completely loose and
flailing about in the crib. Two things will get her back to sleep:
physically holding her arms by her sides until she quiets down and
drops off, or re-swaddling her and rocking her a bit. Neither is
fun, especially at 2 a.m. Poor Brian has to hover over her bassinet
as she drifts off, making sure no appendages escape.


We’d dearly like to stop wrapping Cora up for sleep; for one
thing, she’s started finding her thumb to suck and I’d
much rather have her find her own thumb in the middle of the night
than have it be my job to find her stupid pacifier in the middle of
the night. But I don’t see an end in sight, since any time I
try to lay her down unswaddled she is awake and whacking away
within about ten minutes.


Fortunately for me, my girlfriend Abby went through this with her
second son Josh and she discovered the href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FMiracle-Blanket-Green-Beige-Trim%2Fdp%2FB000G0IPNI&tag=1mother2anoth-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">
Miracle Blanket; it does the swaddling for you and is
definitely harder to kick out of. So far it’s worked well,
though it hasn’t cleared up the whole problem: now Cora wakes
up for whatever reason and stares quietly at the ceiling for a
while before starting to whimper. At least she’s not flailing
around any more – I like to think that makes her happy. And
she is sleeping longer stretches, which is a huge relief. Hey, and
extra half hour is an extra half hour, and definitely makes this
blanket worthwhile.


So keep your fingers crossed for us that she outgrows this phase
SOON and Mommy and Daddy can get back to sleeping again. For now,
we’ll wrap her in the Miracle Blanket and count our
blessings.