How do you wake?

Our son wakes up with some fairly consistent stuff that he does:

Usually, he rolls around a little. Then, pulls up on all fours. Usually, he starts rubbing his eyes. Then, one other thing our son does when he wakes up is makes noise. Specifically, he sort of “moans”… he whines… it sounds like he’s about to cry, but it’s long and drawn out. It’s just hard to describe, but I’m certain it doesn’t help him fall back asleep.

Without attention, he usually starts crying and trying to pull himself up in his crib. Sometimes, he succeeds. Our goal is always to get to him before he’s able to do this.

Of course, sometimes he wakes up without any noise and is standing there waiting happily for us to pick him up. Usually, we only go and check on him because we hear so much movement in the baby monitor.  This can all be pretty frustrating.

But, as discussed, it’s important to get to know your baby.  As time goes on, I find this to be truer and truer.  So, I wanted to write a little about the observations I’ve made about my son.

The only other thing I wanted to note was how he tells me he’s in pain.  He has different signals for differnt things and being able to identify them, especially int he dark and with little to no sleep is always a challenge.  Basically, at this point in his life, there are only a few things that really bother him during sleep.  Usually, it’s either his teeth or gas that causes him to wake up in pain.  Now, once he’s actually awake, then a few other things can bother him.  If he wakes up enough, he can realize that he’s also hungry, needs a diaper change, or just wants to be held.

I tend to believe the sleep experts who say that an older baby, like my son, doesn’t wake up because he’s hungry or needs a diaper change.  I truly think that they either wake up because they are in pain or they just wake up (like everyone does) and can’t get back to sleep.  However, once they are awake, I believe they can find other things that are bothering them and have a harder time getting back to sleep until these things are addressed.

~ by Steve "Oz" on August 19, 2007.