Noting that Eli seemed really uncomfortable sleeping in his crib lately, Jon and I were inspired on Friday night to throw caution, and the advice of countless child-safety experts, to the wind and put two of our couch cushions in Eli's crib (they fit perfectly), cover them with the snap-off top sheet, and see if Elijah slept better on those. Well, he did, settling right in on them, and sleeping the whole rest of the night without incident. After a week of little sleep due to Eli's virus, this seemed pretty conclusive evidence to us that Eli needed a new, softer, mattress so we decided to get one for him ASAP.
We had originally purchased the top-rated mattress for infants from the Consumer Report’s guide, and the book Baby Bargains (anal Missy, yes I know). The mattress was great but is quite firm, which is probably better for little babies so their risk of re-breathing carbon dioxide and SIDs is lower. But man does that mattress feel uncomfortable. Like a rock, uncomfortable. I guess it doesn’t matter much when babies are shapeless little lumps, swaddled in blankies, but now Eli is bigger and has shoulders and curves, and of course his “giant head” (see post on his 9-month doctor’s visit if you don’t get the reference).
Since the night that we got the new, comfier mattress, Elijah has slept through the night without waking up every night but one (last night, and I don’t really know why, it didn’t seem like anything was wrong. But at 11 pm he woke up and would not go back to sleep. Instead he wanted to lay in bed with mommy, roll back and forth across the bed while sucking his thumb, occasionally snuggle up to me for a bit, and then reach up and bop me in the head to make sure I was awake. Cute, but not from 11 pm to 3 am). Anyway, in our statistically insignificant and completely non-representative sample of nights, it appears that the new mattress gets Eli’s seal of approval!
