Sweet Dreams?

In the past couple of weeks we've really realized how much Mr. P had been spoiling us with his awesome sleep habits. At 5 weeks he started sleeping from about 10:30pm to 4:30am. Then at 7-8 weeks he started sleeping from about 10:30pm to 7am, give or take. Truth be told, he even slept until 8am a few times. We've truly been spoiled. I've learned to not volunteer this information to other new parents for risk of getting the evil eye and completely shunned. New parent + sleep deprivation = nasty temper.

But suddenly things changed. A string of interrupted nights started last week.

Night 1*: went down at 10pm, woke at 11pm, woke at 2:30am, and again at 3:30am before waking up for the day at 6am.

Night 2: went down around 10:30pm, woke at 4am.

Night 3: went down around 10:00pm, woke at 4:30am.

Night 4: went down around 10:30pm, woke at 5:00am.

Night 5: went down around 10:30pm, woke at 4:00am.

*all times are approximate due to half-sleep fog

Now, I realize that most of those nights are still really good for the average 3 1/2 month old. But when you're used to sleeping through the night until at least 6am, it's a shock. At that point in time, we were still swaddling him with the miracle blanket. Almost each time he woke up, when we went in to check on him, he had wiggled out of the blanket. But it's the chicken and egg scenario. Did he wake up because he had wiggled out of the blanket, or did he wiggle out of the blanket because he had woken up?

Who knows, but we decided to try putting him down without being swaddled to see if that would change anything. He's almost old enough now at 16 weeks that he should have grown out of the startle reflex, which would be the cause of waking himself up without the blanket. Plus, the package for the miracle blanket says to use it only until 4 months, and Mr. P is already as big (if not bigger) than the average 4 month old. So for the last two nights, we've given it a shot:

Night 1: went down at 10:00pm, woke at 11:30pm, woke at 1:00am, woke at 2:30am, and again at 4:00am before waking up for the day at 5:30am.

Night 2: went down at 10:30pm, woke at 11:30pm, and again at 3:30am before waking up for the day at 6:30am.

Seeing that last night was better than the first, I'm hoping this is a good trend. The good thing is that it usually doesn't take much to get him back to sleep. Sometimes it's as simple as putting his pacifier back in his mouth, rubbing his back a little and providing some soothing "shhhhh"ing. We'll see. I think both Handsome Hubby and I are trying to avoid the "cry it out" method if we can but we're also both working now and can't do this for too much longer. I guess we'll see what happens.