Josiah is four months old now and many people are asking me about his sleep habits at night. I have mostly stopped nursing him in the night, but he still is far from soothing himself back to sleep on his own. In fact, I had to stop to go give him his pacifier after typing that first sentence!
I'm not sure what to do from here. Part of me is willing to accept constant sleep interruptions because I know it won't last forever. It was so much harder to cope when Silas was not sleeping through the night. I think part of it was that I was working and so needed to be sharp in the morning as my day would start early whether I was rested or not. And part of it was my selfishness from being so used to life on MY terms - it was very challenging for me to give up my routines and comforts to tend to the demands of a small child. I thought things would be so different when I had children - i thought it would be easier.
But now that I've matured a bit and grown into motherhood, I'm much more equipped to handle the sleepless nights. And so my attitude is not one of self-pity but rather of acceptance. I've always been a realist and now I have perspective which gives me surprising grace to function on so little sleep.
On the other hand, I do realize that he is four months old and that perhaps I'm not doing anyone any favors if I never let him learn to self-soothe. Now that we are home from vacation, I'll probably experiment a little on some sleep training. If nothing else, it would be nice for him to take a bottle so that I can leave him with a sitter for more than 2 hours.
(Returning again from replacing "foofoo"...)
And so I will try moving him to the car seat or the swing. I may try letting him cry some. I will give up my attempts repeatedly, I'm sure, and bring him back into bed with me for cuddles. I would just continue to sleep with him if it didn't hurt my back so.
Patience is a virtue. I will work on cultivating more patience.
