Sleep Adjustments - A tale of tears, snot and screams

So, we have adjusted fairly well (within 3-4 days or so) to the jet lag and the time change.  It has taken a little more time to adjust to the cultural and language differences but that was expected.  Calvin, on the other hand, has adjusted quite nicely.  I think we can attribute a lot of it to his age -- 9 months.  At this age, he is not attached to anything.  He is definitely attached to me (at the hip!) and his daddy but other than that, he wouldn't really notice if things change -- which they have.

The hardest adjustment for me, and Calvin I suppose, was the sleeping through the night.  We had him on a set routine of 7pm-6:30am that was locked in.  We worked very hard to get (and keep) him to those hours.  Moving 6 hours ahead definitely messed with that routine and we all paid for it.  I wasn't sure how much sleep training to do with him while he was adjusting.  On one hand, you can't pick him up every time he cries in his crib because that's sending the wrong message and will delay things.  In the end, we let him get up and play when he was awake at 2am for the first few nights -- mostly because we were still jet lagged and wide awake ourselves.  I made a point to take him out and about with us as much as possible.  We ran errands during the day, explored the grocery store, and went for long walks along the lake.

By the 4th night, I decided that it was time to re-start the sleep training.  It was rough.  Not only was my inner mommy hating the fact that he was screaming these blood chilling screams but I was also acutely aware that we are in an apartment -- not a townhouse in Atlanta.  This is Sweden! They protect their children with ferocity and I was somewhat nervous that our neighbors would call child protection services (or the Swedish equivalent) on us for letting our baby cry for 30 mins at a time.

The sleep training was further complicated because Calvin decided that he enjoyed flinging his body all around his crib.  He had turned into a baby possessed.  Even if I did pick him up to calm him down, he would throw his weight around and thrash at my face and chest.  We loaded up his crib with pacifiers so that he could always find one, only to discover that he was throwing them all out of his crib.  Jon looked at me and said, "We need to get bumpers."  Umm, bumpers in the closest baby store were going to cost $70.  No bumpers!  Instead, I fashioned my own ghetto bumpers to fix the escaping pacifier problem.  I folded over some flat sheets and weaved them in and out of the crib bars (see the pic above). Perfect! Why would anyone spend $70 on padded bumpers?  Oh, wait. I know why.  While sheets prevent the pacifiers from being thrown out, it does NOTHING to prevent Calvin's head from crashing into the bars of the crib.  Whenever he got into his thrashing fits, he would slam his head on the crib and start wailing again. Well, sorry kid.  You just have to calm down because I'm still not paying $70 for bumpers when his original bumpers are on a container ship crossing the Atlantic with the rest of our stuff.

Fortunately, for everyone, whoever built this house in the 1900s must have lined the walls and doors with lead.  You could definitely hear him in the hallway but somewhat faintly.  We survived 2 nights of the snot, screams and tears (without CPS knocking on our door) and now he is on a new nap and sleeping schedule.  We actually achieved an 8pm-8am once! It hasn't been repeated yet but I expect he will only become more regular as we maintain our nightly routine.

When Calvin goes to bed, I scramble to get all of the household chores done.  Yeah, yeah, "sleep when he sleeps" -- yeah right!  That's when I enjoy a nice shower, finish the dishes, clean up his toys and sweep the floor.  The ticker starts at 45 minutes so it's a mad dash to get everything done before I hear his little putters.

Oh and he is totally playing us with his wimpers.  I have peeked in twice and found him with 2 pacifiers in his mouth at the same time -- "how many will fit in here?"  and the other time I checked in on him, he had a pacifier in his mouth, threw it down and cried to be picked up.  In other words, he is completely fine.

Maybe I can sleep in here with Bessie!