\nI was getting worn out by the endless slinging (tired knees, tired shoulders and back, and tired of the whole thing) so last weekend we started to teach Ingrid to fall asleep in the pram, while we bounce \/ jiggle \/ rock it. In a way we’re just exchanging one prop for another – falling asleep in the pram that way is still nowhere near falling asleep independently. But if this works, I think it will be a step in the right direction: towards falling asleep in a bed. In the pram she will be further away from us, and she will be lying down instead of upright, as she is in the sling. So the pram is “closer” to a bed than the sling – an intermediate step.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnother good thing about the pram is that anyone can do it. Any generous friend or relative can take her out in the pram, whereas using the sling takes some practice – and willingness to wear a baby close to your body for hours, possibly.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd if nothing else, the pram will give us an alternative, for when the sling isn’t an option (for example in case of a back ache).\n<\/p>\n
\nRight now it sort of works, but not as well as the sling. It takes longer for her to go to sleep, and she doesn’t sleep as long. Quite frequently she’s woken after about half an hour of sleep, which is not enough for her. When she is in the sling and starts wriggling, I notice it very quickly and can soothe her back to sleep, but when she starts to wake in the pram I rarely succeed with that. So we’re sticking with the sling for the important occasions (long midday nap, and evening sleep) and using the pram for the smaller naps in the morning and afternoon.\n<\/p>\n
\nIngrid is better and better at sleeping, though. Most encouragingly, she has started wriggling and almost-waking in the pram and in her Moses basket, but then gone back to sleep on her own. She’s very rarely managed that before. So perhaps she is now maturing (if one can say that about a 10-week baby) to slightly more independent sleep.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn the evening I try to move her from the sling to her Moses basket, but when I go to bed I give her a last feed and move her to our bed for the night. Initially, during her first month, I kept her in the basket all night, but that meant both of us were wide awake after each feed and had to somehow go back to sleep. Now I feed her without either of us being fully awake, and sometimes we both drift off to sleep before she’s done. I think that change – from basket to our bed – instantly gave me at least 2 extra hours of sleep per night. True, much of the time I don’t sleep very deeply with her right next to me – but light sleep is way better than no sleep!\n<\/p>\n
\nMost nights she wakes 3 times for food, and sometimes half-wakes for other reasons (mostly wind). A while ago (maybe a month) she only woke twice in the night, but that passed – I suspect she wakes more often than she would if food was further away, perhaps because she can smell it (or me).\n<\/p>\n
\nThere was also a brief period when she would wake and be completely alert and awake for 2 hours, kicking and playing in her basket, but that was a temporary thing, luckily.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhile Ingrid’s sleep is still my primary preoccupation, day and night, I think we are not doing too badly at all, and are slowly moving in the right direction. Fingers crossed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was getting worn out by the endless slinging (tired knees, tired shoulders and back, and tired of the whole thing) so last weekend we started to teach Ingrid to fall asleep in the pram, while we bounce \/ jiggle \/ rock it. In a way we’re just exchanging one prop for another – falling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ingrid_johanna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}