Glimmer of Hope

(this could be considered one of those 'denial' moments)

I have noticed that my baby goes down for naps in the daytime with a lot less effort on my part these days (most of the time).  He needs his dummy and a bit of a rock, but he drifts off pretty easily and I have even had a few times where I have put him down, he has opened his eyes but with a hand on his chest, he has floated off to la-la land.  If he is in his pushchair at the right time of day, he will also fall asleep in there.  So this is progress.

I have also noticed that baby can easily go for 4 hours between feeds during the day, especially if some of that time is spent asleep.

So why is it so hard at night?

I am starting to wonder if it is my state of mind.

During the day the naps are less high stakes because I am not relying on them in order to get sleep myself.  So I am more relaxed putting him down and I am also more reliant on cues from him that he is tired and ready for a nap.  In contrast, in the evening he has a bedtime imposed on him and I am more stressed about him going to sleep.  The same goes for the middle of the night.

I feel like maybe if I resign myself to sleepless night and treat his wake ups a bit more like I do his naps, I might actually see an improvement?

The other factor is his feeding.  He has it the wrong way round - he should be going for 4 hours at night, not during the day?  I think maybe I am going to have to try not to feed him back to sleep in the night and then he might be more hungry during the daytime.  This is going to require more effort on my part to get him sleeping, but maybe, just maybe it will be worth it. We'll see.  Watch this space.