Thumb

So I have been complaining recently about Laurel's sleep habits, which have been deteriorating over the past two months: she groans in her sleep, she wakes up at night, and sometimes she even stays awake instead of going back to sleep after nursing. This is the child who used to sleep ten or 11 hours straight! She was a much worse sleeper at six months old than she had been at three months old.

But I think I have a solution: her thumb!

All her life she has liked to suck her thumb -- starting even before she was born -- and in the last month she has really gotten into it! But at night she is unable to reach her thumb because she sleeps swaddled. We started doing this when she turned three months old because she began startling herself awake, and it really helped; she slept soundly for a month or two. But since she no longer sleeps soundly, I thought I would risk leaving her unswaddled to see if it stopped the groaning.

It does.

So when she groaned in her sleep, it was her subconscious calling out for her thumb, I theorize. At any rate, there are no more groans, and although it's too soon to draw any final conclusions, it seems like there is also going to be a lot less night waking -- perhaps because with her thumb, she can comfort herself back to sleep.

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Why did she only groan at night? Why didn't she groan during her naps, when she was also swaddled? Why didn't she wake up and try to break out of her swaddling? That I don't know.

All I know is: all hail the thumb!