Day 176: Sleep Update

I know Mitchell sleeping in the crib is a picture that has been seen before, but it is appropriate tonight and his sleep is always evolving. For the past two weeks, Mitchell had a major sleep regression. After going a month without needing a middle of the night feeding, he was back to needing one, maybe two per night. It started because he got sick again. He had an ear infection, didn't feel good, so ate less during the day. This meant he needed to catch up on calories in the middle of the night. Well, even though he was on antibiotic and definitely not sick, he decided he still needed to eat in the middle of the night. Over the weekend, he barely ate during the day and slept horribly. There was nothing wrong with him, unless you consider "lazy" something wrong! What was the problem? He needed a bigger size nipple on his bottle so he didn't have to work for his milk to come out. We started giving him level 3 nipples with every bottle on Sunday and he has slept through the night the past two nights. He still wakes up a handful of times, but the paci satisfies him and it is a quick fix. I put him in bed tonight around 7 and he was wide awake. He was asleep within 10 minutes. If he doesn't wake up on his own by 10, I will wake him up and give him another bottle to make it through the night. This routine has worked like a charm the past two nights. So we will continue to do this until the next change, which I'm sure won't be long.