you’re getting sleepy!*

have you seen/heard this song/video?    same love by macklemore   i love it so much.   in general, i love macklemore a lot, so it’s interesting that last night during a nice long sleep segment (almost 5 hours)  i dreamt that macklemore had a crush on me!  ha!   i love my dreams sometimes.   
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speaking of sleep.   i may have written that joaquin is (mostly) great at night sleeping.   we generally get a 4-6 hour sleep at night followed by a 3-hour sleep segment, followed by maybe another hour of sleep.   if i wasn’t fundamentally opposed to waking up at 6a every day, this would mean that essntially joaquin is only waking up once a night for a feeding session.   it’s pretty predictable, which equates to pretty awesome in the world of baby sleep.  he sleeps with us, in a sleeper in the middle of the bed.   not sure when we will be transitioning him to a crib?   hmmm.

daytime napping is a whole ‘nother challenge.   i’ve read that it’s ideal to keep babies of this age awake for about 2 hours, then put them down for a 45-minute nap.   but joaquin’s daytime nap schedule is so unpredictable, as is his "wake time" in between naps.  he also sometimes naps for 20 minutes, but other times he’s napped as long as 3 hours (!?!?)    we are entering a stage in his development when sleep training might actually work and or be effective, but the idea of sleep training is so much more optimistic than the actuality of it.  for our guy, anyway.    and by all accounts, we’ve adopted the idea that he is a "sparkler"   aka a "high needs" baby.   in some ways, he totally fits these descriptions, but in other ways he seems to be somewhat easygoing.    i’m THANKFUL, so VERY THANKFUL that his nightime routine tends to be very predictable and extremely enjoyable.   it’s his daytime routine that i struggle with.


as he blissfully naps right now, he is on the "brest friend" where he’s been since i last nursed him.   he’s great at falling asleep during a feeding or right after, and likes to stay close to me.   he’s also very good about napping while i wear him, either in the bjorn or in his moby wrap.   he almost always sleeps in the carseat while en route someplace, but almost always has a meltdown on the way home.   he’s getting "better" at sleeping in his moses basket or his crib….   oh!  he’s awake….. to be continued   


so anyway… right now it’s 10:44p (the next day? or two days later?  it’s now 11.29.2012)   he had an AMAZING sleep day today (his 3 month birthday, actually).     he slept in HIS CRIB (this is a rarity!) for nearly an hour today.  i was so excited i didn’t know what to do with myself.  so i went upstairs to make sure he was still alive, and of course, inadvertantly woke him up.   ah well.   it was progress.   then, tonight, i put him in his moses basket after his bathtime/dance party ritual and he entertained himself for nearly an hour (?!?!) and then put himself to sleep.   again, i had no idea what to do with myself.  so i came back to this entry to write about it!

(him – right now!)

his daytime routine is still less than desirable considering he’s been having some random crying spells that seem more like a newborn than a BIG 3-MONTH OLD, but we are ebbing and flowing as we have been all along and each leg of this marathon i learn something new about how to be Patient and he learns something new about how to communicate with us.

this parenting stuff is seriously WAY harder than i expected it to be — in some ways.   but in others… it’s so amazing and cool and he’s such a fascinating little guy — i love him so much and i only get upset when he cries because i always WANT TO FIX HIM.  but i’m sure i’ll eventually come to realize that i can’t fix everything for him, and i will miss these days when i actually could solve 99% of his issues.  

ANYWAY.   i’m going to go enjoy this sleep break for a few more minutes before i put MYSELF to bed.