Feb. 12, 2000 - Saturday
While we seem to have hit the sleep jackpot with Harry - he regularly goes 5-7
hours a night now and almost from the start was sleeping 4-5 hours - I never
wrote about the first night we had him home from the hospital. I'm sure by most
standards it was nothing to complain about, but we were typical anxious new
parents. After dinner with Harry's visiting new grandparents, we put him to
bed a little before midnight in a family bassinet that I, both of my siblings,
and one entire family of cousins all slept in as infants. Harry's four second
cousins from that family each used the bassinet as well.
The bassinet was beside our bed and, with the tenuous sleep of new parents,
we heard every move, gurgle, and whimper Harry made. Unfortunately for us all,
he made several for the next two hours. His mother and I each got up time and
again to look at him and agonized for most of that entire time about why he
wasn't sleeping as soundly as in the hospital. Looking back, that was really
the only night he ever woke up crying and he did it twice. Finally, a little
after 2am, we agreed he must be cold and decided to bring him into the bed with
us. I realized later that we hadn't had the heat on in our bedroom for several
years, so maybe Harry was indeed cold. Heating pipes to the floor above do go
through the room and heat it sufficiently for Harry's mother and me under normal
circumstances, especially in our heated water bed, but perhaps not for Harry
who had been used to his mother's 98 degree belly for nine months and then the
warm hospital.
It wasn't an easy decision bringing Harry into the water bed because we'd heard
stories about infants in adult beds either rolling over and suffocating or having
a parent roll onto the child. But, we finally rationalized that our experience
in the water bed suggested that inadvertent rolling was near impossible and
rather required a concerted effort for position changes. With Harry propped
against my side and in the crux of my left arm, me on my back angled slightly
toward him, and his mother close against my other side to prevent any rolling
at all, we finally found Harry a comfortable sleeping environment and he slept
for more than three hours. My left arm and leg got a little numb from holding
the same position, but it was a small price to pay for relaxing our new son.
Now, with the antidote of time, I look back with fondness at our sleeping boy
there beside me and at our success finding rest for him. We haven't brought
him in the bed that often and haven't had to thanks to Harry's generous
nature with sleep. These days we're trying to figure out a nap schedule, if
there is one to be figured, that will keep Harry sleeping his longer 7 hour
nights as opposed to the shorter 5 hours. It's long evening naps, we think,
that tend to shorten his slumber during the rest of the night, but we're torn
because we know he needs to eventually start going to bed in the earlier evenings.
We like morning naps and afternoon naps, but we suspiciously struggle with the
evening ones as the culprits to our own lost sleep in the early morning hours.
