To sleep, perchance to dream

I think I made a discovery that made me feel rather awful but also provided some useful information on how to get Miles to sleep better at night. I think he was cold! Once I could no longer swaddle him, I thought also that I couldn't have any blankets on him for fear of suffocation risks. I can't explain why sometimes I am a total space cadet and ditz about certain things, but I really didn't think about the fact that he was losing a layer of fabric... I just dressed him in a long sleeved onesie and wrapped a swaddling blanket around his lower half, which never lasted very long as he wanted his legs free... so I'd just cuddle him after it fell off. On top of that we had some wacky weather where it was hot one night and cold the next so I never seemed to have him in the right clothing at night.

Finally one night it dawned on my pudding head that he might actually be waking up because he was chilly. I felt his ears and they were cool to the touch. I kept waking up because I was a little chilly toward dawn, maybe he was too! DUH.

I started dressing him in a sleeper and even a onesie underneath on extra chilly nights. I don't really love footies for Miles, I think because he's kind of slender and since his legs don't fill out the sleeper and he kicks a lot, his feet sometimes get caught up in the legs of the sleeper and it all drives me batty. But it's better than being cold. I also added a soft blankie, because at this point I feel that he's pretty mobile, he can certainly move his head around and roll out of the way and whatnot - I still keep it below the waist but I am not as worried about it coming up over his face.

Pizza night aside, this seems to be working. He still wakes up to nurse a few times, but sleeps well in between feedings and so do I. In fact I have felt so well rested some days that I have trouble going to bed early and end up reading in bed for a couple of hours (which is nice too).

Last night he fell asleep while I was still reading. He likes to sleep on his side, as do I... at night we are usually curled up facing each other for easy boob access. I looked at his sleeping face and it struck me again that he's his own person. An individual, not, as it sometimes feels, part of me at all. It's such a funny thing to contemplate how precious these days are, when they are precisely the days he'll never remember.