Saturday, May 10, 2008

Caring for Kaden

Kaden is an unique child. He is very different from his sis in many ways. Well, physically yes but its not just that. He has very "good" lungs. His cries are very loud and his grandpa is quite scared of him for that..haha..

The biggest problem we had with him was his sleep and his crying. He had 'broken sleep" at night and would wake up several times crying. I am not sure if he had been traumatised by the "nanny issues" but it could have some impact on him. Eversince the 1st nanny left, he had been having "sleepless" nights......even with the 3rd nanny, she couldnt handle him and had to hold/rock him to sleep every night. As a result, we ran into some problem caring for him after the nanny left.....he wanted us to carry him all the time whether he's awake or asleep. And how am I able to carry him all the time, I wouldnt have the strength to do that as my pils will be leaving for Australia in a week's time....plus I got to take care of my elder child too.

In the end, we resorted to getting a baby cradle set (or "sarong swing"). Though there is an electronic one, we got a manual one instead as I intend to get him out of this cradle thing once he's better. So he was sleeping in the swing during the daytime and on bed during the night. Beginning, he was able to take it well...sleeping nicely in the swing in the day and sleeping on the bed at night....but a week after that, he seemed to develop some kind of habit and refused to sleep on the bed at night. But once you put him in the "bouncing swing", he felt asleep.....and you could only put him on the bed after he slept very soundly...which is like after 2 or 3 hrs later then you can take him out without him fussing about. Hubby wanted to put him in the cradle every night but I refused and insisted on "training" him to sleep on the bed, wanted him to ditch the habit of sleeping in the swing. We had a few quarels over that. It was that bad cos hubby couldnt have proper sleep at night due to Kaden's wailing and he had to work in the day. On certain nights, both of us didnt sleep after 2,3 am...just to pacify the boy and put him to sleep. This continued for about 2,3 weeks...until the week before my inlaws was dued to return to care for their 2 grandchildren then Kaden started to get better...His wailing was still there but the duration was shorter from 3,4 hrs to 2,3 hrs..sometimes 1,2 hrs.

Trenyce had also been affected by her little brother's wailing at night. Though she's sleeping but I doubt she had quality sleep. This could be judged by the amount of sleep she's getting from her afternoon nap. Sometimes, she could sleep for 3hrs for her nap! Poor girl!

2 weeks before I am dued to return to workplace, I started to reduce the number of "swinging" times for Kaden. From 3 times to 2 times to 1 time and gradually none. When pils came back, I had already trained him napping without the sarong swing. Quite an achievement huh! But it didnt come easy. It took alot of patience.....I had to carry and pacify him many times to achieve that.

Kaden sleeping comfortably in his sarong swing.

Mood: Exhausting

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