Sleep questions | Imamother

Chippies

Mon, Feb 16 2009, 10:04 pm

I have just one son who is about 11 weeks old and there are two main sleep-related issues that we've been having. I hope someone with more experience is able to give me some advice.

1) He doesn't take a pacifier (always spits it out) and doesn't yet know how to suck on his thumb. Up until a week or so ago, he was able to fall asleep without a pacifier and he usually had one stretch of 4-5 hours of sleep in a row, then he'd wake up just to eat, and go back to sleep for another 3 hours, again wake up to eat and back for another 3 hours. I was quite content with this schedule. But over the past week and a bit, he's been waking up every 2 hours. He's definitely not hungry and is now spitting up more often, so my theory based on what I've read is that he's using me as a pacifier to soothe him back to sleep. I'm not sure how to get him out of this habit. I am nursing and not using a bottle, by the way.

2) He's super active with legs always kicking and arms always flailing. I find that the only way to get him to sleep is to swaddle him. That's what we've been doing, but recently, he's enjoyed sucking on his hand, and my hope is that he'll soon discover his thumb and be able to soothe himself independently. In order for this discovery to happen, his hand needs to be out of the swaddle, but then it starts flailing and then he usually doesn't sleep for so long. I've been trying to just keep one arm in and one out, but then the swaddle isn't so tight and he wakes up with both arms out of the swaddle. Should I just swaddle both arms, thereby forbidding access to his hands, or is there another way? I just think self-soothing is an important skill for him to learn.

Any suggestions/comments are welcome!

Thanks.