The Battle of the Wills

August 5, 2008

We have been so spoiled with Liam...he started sleeping through the nights very early on and then not only slept through the night but slept for 10-12 hours. We felt so lucky and relieved seen as how I am not so nice with a lack of sleep.

The only problem was that we swaddled him, and when I say swaddled I mean mummy wrapped...both arms down and tightly wrapped. I would find him the same way I left him 12 hours before! It seemed to work with the babies in the NICU so why not do it with my own. I unfortunately did not grasp that my baby would become addicted and would not be able fall asleep unless he was swaddled.

So a couple nights ago Liam was crabby going to sleep so I decided that he finally outgrew being swaddled and unwrapped him. Boy let the battle of the wills begin!!! I do our usual nighttime routine and then lay him in the crib with a blanket lightly placed over him and he screams bloody murder. I have tried everything from going in every 5-10 minutes to soothe him (which by the way makes it worse), to picking him up (yeah an even bigger mistake), to finally putting him on his tummy (which has finally after 2 nights started to work). I know that the SIDS recommendations is "back to sleep" but I figure since he can roll over from his tummy to his back he should be OK.

Well any ideas would be much appreciated, I am doing the best I can. OI wonder am I trading one bad habit for another?