Sleep Plan B

Last night I instituted PLAN B to get Wren to sleep more. This is PLAN B:

1. Nurse Wren at bedtime (around 9pm).
2. Turn on the new White Noise machine
   
3. If he wakes up before 5 hours have passed, help him back to sleep without nursing. Some yelling is okay but shrieking and choking in desperation when set down are not. This is not a Cry It Out attempt, yet, although I am not picking him up immediately to give him a chance to get back to sleep on his own.
4. Nurse again after 5 hours.
5. Nurse again after 2-3 hours if its near morning, or after 3 hours if its far from morning.
   

Last night it went okay. He went to sleep at 8pm, woke at 9pm - went to sleep again at 9.30pm (nursing) and slept till 2am. I rocked him to sleep. He woke again at 4am and nursed to sleep and then nursed again at 6.30am until 7.30 when we got up.

Strangely, he woke almost as frequently as before but because I didn't feel I had to nurse him every time and was prepared for him to cry in protest it wasn't as stressful. Julie, from my Listening Mothers group, spoke of her decision to change her attitude to sleeplessness when she couldn't control her baby's sleep and I think there is some truth in that. If you are happy to nurse all night then frequent wakings aren't an issue. I am not happy to do that and yet I'm okay with soothing him back to sleep for now. I hope this works.

Meanwhile, I spoke with the cardiology nurse about Wren's swollen leg. They suspect (from my description and the history) some "unilateral iliac vein compression". The nurse said she would talk to Dr Lewin but since it was stable and there was not much discoloration she felt they could wait till Monday's clinic to look at it further.