Last Trick Up My Sleeve

It's gone. That one thing that I knew, when all else failed, had a good chance of getting Ryan to fall asleep at night. The trick up my sleeve that I could resort to when I was bone-tired and just needed Ryan to fall asleep! Gone are the days when breastfeeding could put Ryan into dreamland. Ugggg I've been dreading this day. I haven't weaned him, but for some reason the sleepy novelty of nursing has worn off for him.

For about the last 3 weeks, I haven't been able to nurse Ryan to sleep at night. Instead, he remains wide awake, and if anything, seems energized by it! I knew this would eventually happen, which is why I have been trying so hard to teach Ryan to fall asleep in other ways. Let's just say he is not a good student. Our new method of getting him to fall asleep at night? Adam and I now have to lay down together with Ryan on our bed. He stands up, we put him back down. And on and on and on. Eventually after about 1-1.5 hours of this, he will fall asleep on our bed. We then carry him in to his crib, where he will sleep peacefully for about 3 hours. He then comes back in bed with us and I attempt to get him back to sleep.

The weird thing is that Ryan will now only fall asleep if both of us are next to him. So if it's 9:30 and Adam is still at work, guess who won't go to sleep? This has made our bedtime later than ideal. Typically we can get Ryan to sleep by 10:30 most nights, but he's still up for the day by 6:30 every morning. Oh and naps? Still mostly nonexistent. I'm trying to accept the fact that Ryan has stoppped napping at the age of 14 months. I apologize for yet another whiny post about our less-than-stellar sleep. But hey, this is my life, and sleep is very important. So that's where we are right now. Hopefully things will improve soon!