Payback

Noah was entirely too easy during his first 6 months of life. Now, he is teaching us to not become complacent. The last two weeks, in particular, have been tough. He is still the darling, happy baby we are used to all day long. Then night comes and he becomes a little monster. The kid hates sleeping. I love sleeping, how can someone related to me hate sleeping so much?! The last few nights have involved inconsolable crying (either holding him, rocking him, and even occasionally when trying to nurse him) for hours. We think he is teething (which we are now blaming the fever from the weekend on), so I have been giving him a break because I know he might be uncomfortable. But during the day, he seems to be in a perfectly good mood, it's only at night that he freaks out, so I don't think it is only a physical thing.

One major issue we are having is with swaddling. Noah is still being swaddled at night. However, I am beginning to suspect that he doesn't like it. But he has such busy little hands, that if we try to let him sleep unswaddled, he will pull his hair and ears, rub his eyes, scratch his head, etc, etc, etc and is unable to fall asleep. Thus, we always end up putting the swaddle back on which, in turn leads to more screaming and crying. These behaviors only happen when he is tired, and I really don't know what to do. The other night I tried putting him to sleep on his belly (which currently is a big dogma no-no because of SIDS), but even then he couldn't fall asleep, and I gave up and resorted back to the swaddle. Another time, I tried putting socks on his hands (because the baby mittens are no match for his giant baby hands) and he ended up rubbing the sock across his mouth so much he rubbed his lips raw. It is really frustrating and I feel so bad for him and us. 

The other night I had had it. I wanted to just let him cry it out. Grant wouldn't let me. So now we are trying really hard to do the 'No Cry' sleep solution again, as one last effort before resorting to Ferber method. I am having my doubts about the 'No Cry' way of doing things, but I promised Grant to really try this one last time, and if it doesn't work, he promised to try the Ferber method with me. 

It's an ongoing battle and I am trying to maintain perspective about it all, as I know that this will eventually pass, but it is so so so so frustrating.