The Nightly Ritual...

It seems Evan is a night owl. While most nights he goes to sleep okay, and he's been known to sleep in 4 to 5 hour stretches between feedings and diaper changes, he just doesn't wanna go to sleep when it's mom and dad's time to go to sleep. A few nights over the past week have gone something like this: (Note: These times are approximate, here in our household we do not follow a strict time regiment. We are not that perfect or anal-retentive.)

• 9:00pm to 9:30pm - Evan takes between 3 to 3.5 ounces. We try to burp him betwixt every ounce. At some point during this, Evan farts and poops his pants.
• 9:30pm - He usually goes into what we call the 'milk coma' when he drinks anything more than 3 ounces, it's almost automatic.
• 9:32pm - Get a clean diaper on Evan. He sleeps through the whole thing.
• 9:35pm - We attempt to swaddle him and lay him down in his crib for sleep. Through trial and error, we've learned that Evan likes to be swaddled, but he wants his arms free. I turn on his fan, night-light soother and turn off the light and close his door.
• 9:40pm - No sooner than I shut his bedroom door, he rouses and starts to fuss.
• 9:45pm to 9:50pm - Evan is wailing full tilt by this point. Linda and I listen attentively to the baby monitor, wondering when we should go back in or if we should give him another minute til he goes to sleep.
• 9:52pm - I go in there to see what the matter is... I pick him up... He's throwing punches and flailing his legs. He's pissed and has the most pitiful scrunched-up face.
• 9:55pm - I try to burp him, attempting to find out what is the problem. He lets out a hefty chunky burp with a little extra somethin'-somethin' that he was trying to save for later.
• 10:00pm - He zonks out again. I try to get up from the glider to put him back to sleep, but he wakes again and starts to fuss.
• 10:05pm - I think he's hungry, so I warm up another bottle and try to 'top him off'...
• 10:05pm to 10:15pm - He takes another half to full ounce.
• 10:15pm to 10:20pm - He drifts into and out of sleepiness...fighting sleep...and finally succumbs to it. I put him down again.
• 10:22pm - The beast rises again!
• 10:25pm to 10:45pm - He gets a violent case of hiccups. The kind that shakes his whole body. This pisses him off, and he cries and cries. Periodically he'll stop crying...and have a look of exhaustion and defeat on his face. It breaks my heart because there isn't anything I can do to make them stop. I just hold him and try to comfort him.
• 10:50pm - He poops his pants again, and I change him once again.
• 10:53pm - I forget to put a wet wipes over his wee-wee and he sprays himself in the face, gets me, the changing pad table (soaking the cover) and the wall.
• 10:55pm to 11:00pm - Sort through his sleep sacks to find another one that fits. He's grown to the point were he kinda still fits into the NB sizes, but they are a bit small and snug. The 0-3 sizes are still kinda loose and big yet.
• 11:05pm to 11:10pm - He fusses a bit more... He finally nods off. He sleeps til about 4:30am, and Linda has to repeat this process.

Funny thing is...this only happens when we are ready to go to bed. During any other point in the day, he'll nod off after eating, we'll lay him down in his crib and he'll sleep for a good hour or two without any fussing.

Linda & I are still trying to get this down, we're novices... Some nights are better than others. For the most part though, he's a great sleeper. Just this past week, almost every night has followed this timeline of events. We'll get it, eventually... I asked Evan to please be patient with us... He said he'd think about it.