It happened accidentally. Mathias woke up during the night (a regular and frequent occurrence) and I turned the monitor volume off so as to let Hubby sleep (he was sick), fully intending to turn it back on again once I was back in bed so that I would not miss the next wake-up cry. But it didn't happen. That is, I forgot to turn the volume back on and what a blessed mistake! I'm not sure if Mathias woke up sometime between 2:30 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., but I know I didn't! To top it all off, nobody suffered significant trauma because I didn't wake up to feed him after the arbitrary 5 hour minimum between feedings (only at night, of course).
There is no point in using a baby monitor at night if the baby is sleeping right across the hallway, right? We didn't use it at night with Anna. Instead, we left her door cracked and ours open and let her wake us up when she really needed something.
I chose to use a monitor with Mathias because I wanted to keep him from waking Anna up during the night. A noble desire, I am sure, but it meant that Mathias was waking me up 3+ times a night, which can be difficult for someone as dependant on sleep to be a happy person as I am. Because of my "mistake", I was actually able to sleep for a decent length of time.
Practically giddy with success and sleep, I decided it was time to go completely unplugged. Last night, the baby monitor was consigned to the kitchen table and we just left our door open so that we could hear Mathias' cries when they became desperate. And you know what? He only woke up once last night. At least as far as I know. I was asleep.
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5 comments:
A lot of people look at me disapprovingly when I say this, but if they aren't crying loud enough to wake me up, they're fine.
That said, I live in a TINY apartment where even the downstairs neighbors' kids wake me up, so it isn't that cruel. But seriously, if I use a monitor, I wake up to every little stir and squeak, and 9 times out of 10, the kids go RIGHT back to sleep after that, so there's no need to wake up for that, right?!
I sometimes wonder if my kids really start sleeping through the night, or if I just become too tired to wake up to hear them.
I'm glad to know you can get more sleep. In the long run that will be better for Mathias, too. How long is it until Memorial weekend? Sigh
Yeah baby!!
I'm noticing a theme with your blog posts - each one is sharing a little miracle that happened. So wonderful!
Sleep is a beautiful thing. Especially when it includes you AND your children.
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