Christmas & A "What To Do?"...

I want this happy boy back at bedtime!

Over the past several nights we have been having a worsening problem.  It started out "okay", Gabriel would cry for a few minutes when we first went to bed, he's still sleeping with us...every time we try to move him to the Pack n' Play, he screams and screams until we put him back between the two of us.  I assume this has more to do with the scent of us, being able to hear our breathing better, and our warmth than the actual Pack n' Play being the issue.  He sleeps in it during the day with little to no issue, as long as I get him to sleep before putting him in it.

Since Sunday though (today is Wednesday, I think)...things have gotten worse and worse!  Last night it reached the point where I now know I need to seek help in getting him comfortable enough to sleep at night!  Last night, Gabriel spent the entire night screaming bloody murder!  Garrick spent the whole night trying to comfort him because Gabriel wanted nothing to do with me and screamed louder if I tried to help/comfort him.  Of course, he also needed to eat throughout the night...  Since he gets his"bedtime bottle/boob" between 9:30 and 10pm, I got up to warm up a bottle of breast milk at 1am, two-ish hours into our sleepless night.  By the time it was warm, about 5 minutes, he was asleep!  We debated whether we should wake him up, in the end we did because I had to pump because I was so full.  I (foolishly) thought he would go to sleep again once he was fed.  After a diaper change, he was happy...until Garrick brought him into our bedroom!  As soon as he crossed the threshold into the room, Gabriel started screaming again!  This makes me think it is something in the room that is causing the issue, but what it is, I have no idea.  The middle of the night feedings take 30 to 45 minutes, so by 1:45am, we were back at the screaming...Garrick was cuddling Gabriel and let me get a little sleep while he tried to get Gabriel to sleep.  At 5:30am, it was time for another bottle (usually around 6am he is getting up for a boob, but I was the walking dead this morning), another diaper change and back in bed while I showered.  By 6am, he was finally asleep!

How do I get him to sleep at night and not keep one or both of us up all night?  It's currently ten minutes to 9am, he's been asleep for 3 hours, and I don't have the heart to wake him up...he literally did not sleep all night!  I have "pre-pumped" the side he won't be nursing from when he gets up and am tempted to now pump the other side and just let him sleep until he wakes up on his own.  But, I know that isn't the greatest idea either...I'll give him another hour to wake up on his own...four and a half hours in one stretch is long enough without eating, I get nervous about any longer than that still.  He is only 7.5 weeks old after all!

Things I want to try...

• heating pad to warm up the Pack n' Play before putting him in it (taking it out before putting baby in, of course)
• heating pad in crib (he's never slept in it, maybe he needs a room change? Need to also get the baby monitor up and working...)
• get over my fear of letting him sleep on his tummy...he can lift/move his head, but he sometimes wants to sleep with his face smooshed completely into the mattress, this terrifies me!

 What else can I do?  I've been giving him "baby GasX" after his bottle before bed, burp him a ton...

New ornament for the tree this year!

Oh, and...there's only 20 days until Christmas!  That's less than 3 weeks and I don't even have my tree up yet!  It is sitting in my Living Room as of yesterday though...  Before it can go up though, I/we need to clean up the Living Room.  That means Garrick has to move his office stuff into the small area off the living room that we have been slowly turning into our office space.  Then, we need to get the curtain rod up (I bought a 12 foot rod several months ago) and find/add curtains to separate the room into two spaces.  After that, the "great furniture reorganization of 2012" can begin!  The tree is 7.5 feet tall, so it has a very specific area that it can fit in...we have to move an entire couch "out" of the area while also keeping it "in" the area so that we all have somewhere to sit Christmas Eve/Christmas Morning.  After all that happens, then I can vacuum and start getting the tree up!  Maybe this weekend I can get all that done...  I also need to get the rest of our Christmas shopping done, we have a whopping two gifts for Gabriel and one of those is something I bought months before he was born!

We did manage to get his December/Christmas pictures taken last Saturday.  The portrait studio (Wal-Mart) was so busy!  What is the point of making an appointment though when a walk-in that is there ahead of us can just waltz in and make us wait for 45 minutes past our appointment time?  They also gave our appointment to someone else who claimed to be me, they got to go ahead of us too!  However, we did get some decent photos...I am so sick of the ugly mottled brown cloth they use to sit him on (in almost every photo)!  He's all smiles at home, but he refuses to smile during portrait sessions.