Strobes

Last night was a little better in the sleep department, so I feel like I have more patience today, if not more clarity. We are trying a two-pronged approach to the sleep trouble this week.

Prong 1: Light.
Corey has hammered some jaggedy nails into the top of MW's window frame and, from them, draped a navy blue Ikea sheet that doesn't fit any of the mattresses in our house. Because we don't have European beds I guess. With the trashy looking sheet hung, MW's room is black as pitch.

We decided to do this because the people across the street from us have a strobe-light laser show for the holidays. They have Griswald-quality lights hung all over their house and the lights flash on and off in time to holiday music that they blare all night long. They also have a plywood Nativity set, but that's neither here nor there.

The strobe lights don't bother Corey and me because Corey has moved his wardrobe in front of the windows in our bedroom. I don't want to talk about his decision to rearrange furniture such that it blocks all light from the room. The point is I didn't know the strobe lights continued into the night until I went into MW's room and thought there were police cars outside. Then I saw the laser light show and we hung the sheet.

Prong 2: Food
Our pediatrician had us start Miles on solids about a month ago, thinking that with his particular struggles gaining weight combined with his reflux, it would be good to get MW eating some solids. We are now seeing some really good weight gain, sometimes an ounce a day. So we make sure to cram bananas and avocados and sweet potatoes and mushed up pears, etc. into his diet.

I don't cram. We offer it, mashed up, in nice little tablespoon-sized portions. But he seems to like food. A lot. Particularly pumpkin. And boy, oh man does the food change the consistency of his BMs. Does it help him sleep better? Who the heck knows.

Hopefully, the dark room (or at least a room that does not resemble a rave) paired with a full tummy will give us some results in terms of fewer night wakings. As for why he resists sleep for 75 minutes when he DOES wake up, well we will chip away at that problem next.