The Rub

There is a flaw to the sleep lady approach when it comes to my kid.

I have to sit there while Xavier falls asleep. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, he sometimes looks for me and fully wakes up screaming for me because I'm not there anymore. If you remember from Ferber, you shouldn't give kids a job to do in the middle of the night. The conditions they fell asleep under should be the same throughout the night. Well, if I'm sitting there until he falls asleep and then leaving, I give Xavier a job to do by looking for me in the middle of the night.

Now, I know he will still call for me sometimes even if I'm not staying in his room until he falls asleep, but I'm still not being fair by doing this. I just really don't feel like there is another way right now...but I need to go for it and try.

Stuck

Xavier's sleep has definitely improved. The method worked, too. I gradually moved out into the hallway where he could still see me and he was okay with it. Until two things happened: he stayed the night at Grandma and Grandpa Corr's house and he started teething.

The night at G&G Corr's through him off. He flipped when I tried to sit in the hallway his first night back. In fact, I had to move all the way back to the crib to comfort him. He was also waking up screaming due to his I-teeth coming in. I've moved to just inside the door but now, I'm stuck...and running out of time.

I need to move out to the hallway. I will do it. I just don't have faith that we will get beyond this point and we need to. I need to be able to put him in his crib and walk out of the room while he falls asleep. Being 8 months pregnant, it is becoming more and more difficult to sit on the floor sometimes for 10 minutes and sometimes for 45.

For those thinking I'm being to soft about this, I do have a few choice words for you but I'll pick these ones: cry it out doesn't work for him or me. He gets so worked up he won't sleep and then he pukes. I don't want him to go through that. Tears are okay but not me just shutting the door and walking away while he cries (see previous posts). I really do like this method and this along with prayer has been going well.

Now, I just need to have faith I can get unstuck before the baby arrives.

Light sleeper

My kid is a light sleeper and I'm getting really pissed at the people who say he has to learn to "sleep through it." Wtf? How do you teach him that? What kind of training sessions do you set up?

"Ooooooooo...he's asleep now! Let's run the vacuum in his room to train him to sleep through it!" My mom actually told me to...kind of. She said the only time she could vacuum was after I went to sleep because she worked all day. Well, that's great but all it is going to do is wake him up.

Yes, he's slept through Titan barking (one bark) and through a thunderstorm (it was when he first went to sleep at night) but the problem is naps. He doesn't like them but needs them. Oh my Lord, does he need them. 2 hours. That's all. But it is sometimes a struggle to get him down for one because he wants to be up having fun (especially when daddy is home). So any kind of noise is going to wake him up.

I feel like the world is against me on this napping thing. Examples: my 90-year-old neighbor weed whipping right outside X's window. Granger garbage trucks going by our house several times right in the middle of his nap. People knocking at the door causing my dog to go bonkers. Loud motorcycles going sssssslllllloooooowwwwwwwwllllllly by his window. Other neighbor playing his bass way to loud. Everyone firing up their lawnmowers as soon as X is asleep. I could go on. I won't.

And I know I can't control what other people are doing. i can only do my best to make sure he we are excessively noisy while he's sleeping. I've put signs on the doors asking people not to ring the doorbell. I asked the 90-year-old neighbor to hold off on the weed whipping until after 2:30. But I can't ask Granger to change their route. And I can't ask everyone to change their lives just so my kid can get that 2 hours he needs.

and it is about to get worse because Miss Ellison is on her way...well, in two months. At least we have made progress with the naps. Most days it takes about 5-10 minutes for him to fall asleep. Today, it took 45 mins. So, I get stressed out about it because it is hard work and I'm pregnant. It feels like it's is me against the world between the hours of 11:30ish a.m. and 2:30ish p.m.

Even now...we are coming up on the 2 hour mark in about 20 minutes...and I'm almost giddy yet at the same time, holding my breath.

Learning to Sleep (Finally)

I spent the whole next day reading the book and learned more about the method. Not only was I supposed to put him in bed awake, but I wasn't to stand over him, only sit next to him. Also, no snacks right before bed, or milk. These were two things we always gave him. We were to be encouraging and supportive while X went through this transition and only one of us should be with him. Keep talking to a minimum...just shushing. If he stands up in the crib, only put him back down once or it might turn into a game. Instead, continue to shush and gently pat the bed telling him to lay down. If he gets up in the middle of the night, check on him but start the process over.

That day for nap, I held Xavier while he fell asleep. Even at night, I held him. I just wasn't ready to try anything new. But when he woke up in the middle of the night and wouldn't go back to sleep, I put him back in his bed awake.

He flipped.

But I held on.

I sat next to his bed while he sobbed and called out for me. Joey came in briefly to reassure both of us. I wanted to yell at Xavier and tell him to just go to sleep but I also tried to see this through his eyes. To him, it wasn't fair because I had never taught him how to fall asleep on his own. I was losing hope as we went on to hour 2 of this. Then, I started singing to myself a song we sang in RivKids: My God is so big and so strong and so mighty there's nothing my God cannot do. I sang this over and over again and in my heart I made up my mind about something. I had put so much faith in Ferber's method which hadn't worked. I was not going to put my faith in this method, either....but I was going to put my faith in God. He would see us through this whole learning process.

I found myself humming the song and realized Xavier was, too. He had finally calmed down. After 2 hours, Xavier finally fell asleep on his own, in his crib.

"I stand up in faith,
Cause I fear no longer,
And I pray and wait for God to provide.
I lean all of my weight on him who is able,
And I set aside every effort of mine."
lyrics from "A Son of God"

Attempt at new method

I had received a mom magazine in the mail. The mom was talking about sleep and listed, "The Sleep Lady's Good Night, Sleep Tight" by Kim West as one of the books she used. I thought, "might as well" and reserved the book online with my library on Sunday. They had to transfer the book from the Williamston library so I wasn't sure how long it would take to get it. But I had read enough about the book online and in the magazine that I understood the general idea.

Put child in bed awake.
Stay next to child, sitting in a chair, comforting child as needed but not overdoing it.
Stay with child until he falls asleep on his own. Do not pick him up unless he needs to be calmed down. Then immediately put him back into bed.
Every few days, move closer to the door.

But I knew I needed more info in order to use this system. So, I waited for the book.

May 10, early morning (classic scenario): Xavier woke up after being asleep for 3 hours. I was exhausted so Joey went in. After trying to get him back to sleep for an hour, Joey got frustrated and gave up, putting X back in his crib, crying (Xavier was crying, not Joey). I didn't want to listen to him cry but Joey wanted me to leave X there for awhile to see if he would cry himself out. After 45 minutes, he was going strong and really worked up.

But then, I thought I heard someone walking in the hall...or was it in his room....and it sounded like he was closer to us somehow...his cries weren't as distant. His cries were also different...not as urgent or upset. I...being half awake, wondered if my roommate had gone into his room to comfort X. But that wasn't something Heidi would normally do. Joey noticed it, too and got up to go check. I heard him say, "Oh my God," when he entered the room.

I raced in, crying, thinking the worst and there was Xavier, on the floor. He had taken matters into his own hands and climbed out of the crib. I held him so tight and kissed his little face over and over. I rocked him to sleep and made up my mind: we were going to try a new method of sleep training.

Later that morning, I picked up the book from the library and read it as much as I could during the day. We took Xavier to my dad's for dinner and tried to get him in bed by 8pm. I thought this was the perfect opportunity to give this new sleep training method a try.

We did our normal routine: bath, pjs, stories, songs....but then instead of me holding Xavier until he fell asleep, I picked him up (he was drowsy) and put him in his bed.

The kid freaked.

He got himself so worked up that he threw up. I was so upset. I picked him up, kissing him and rocked him to sleep...again.

I felt so depressed and hopeless. Oh, and tired. But something inside me said not to give up.

Sleep Associations

I learned a lot from Dr. Ferber about sleep. The most important was about sleep cycles. As we sleep and move from one sleep cycle to the next (non-REM to REM and back again), we do an environment check. If everything is the way it was when we fell asleep, we go right back to sleep without waking up. But if your 7 months pregnant and realize you have to pee, then you will fully wake up to go. Or, if you dropped your pillow, you will wake up a little to get it. Or, if you fell asleep on the couch and realize you are now in bed, you will wake up confused, perhaps disoriented and try to figure out how you got into the bed. For Xavier, he would wake up and think "wait, I'm not rocking anymore and my mom is gone." He would then fully wake up and need those same conditions in which he fell asleep the first time to get back to sleep this time. Hence, crying out for someone in the middle of the night, several times a night because he needed us to help him go back to sleep. He didn't know how to do it on his own.

Ferber taught me that I shouldn't give my child a job to do in the middle of the night: figure out what is different from when he went to sleep. We tried progressive waiting for almost a year (July to May). When we were consistent, it worked and Xavier would sleep through the night for a week. But we were still missing a key component to all of this: we were still the ones getting X to fall asleep. I did quit rocking him about 2 months ago but I still held him until he was conked out and then slip him in his crib and sneak away. Sometimes he would sleep through the night or through a nap but most times he wouldn't.

I started watching Alexander Cole in February and now had a baby who needed 3 naps and a toddler who needed 2. I was a crazy woman always trying to get someone to sleep. I didn't want Alexander to become dependent on a sleep crutch (me) in order to take a nap. I let him cry more than I did Xavier. But if after 3 minutes he was still crying, I would go in and comfort him. I moved Xavier to one nap a day in April. This helped my situation out a little but now, Xavier would only sleep 20 minutes in his crib, cry and then be moved into the spare bedroom onto a queen size bed where he would finish his nap. It was so irritating because I had to sit and watch him from the living room in case he woke up. I didn't want him to try to get off the bed himself and fall a pretty good distance. I did put pillows down in case it happened (it did once) but I was insane with trying to keep both kids asleep at the same time.

Joey and I were becoming sleep deprived.

In May, I had to stop watching Alexander. I was exhausted due to my own pregnancy and toddler. But everything was about to change for the worse and then for the better :o]

Our journey with Xavier has been more intense and educational than my college career at CMU. At least after an intense day in Mt. Pleasant, I could go out for drinks and dancing with my friends...every.single.night. Just now, I had to take his sippy cup of milk away because he was "watering" his toys with it. Then, after a minor tantrum, I asked him to wipe his own runny nose with a burp rag. He did. Such is my life living with the little boy whose kisses sometimes turn to biting and is so intense when playing with his Potato Heads.

The worst part of this journey...actually, there are two parts....are his sleeping and general disipline. But this post is about sleeping. It is funny how my previous post was about crying it out. Still not a fan at all. The problem was I enjoyed nursing him and rocking him to sleep that it became a sleep crutch or negative sleep association.

At 3 months, we started swaddling xavier, again and it worked. He started sleeping 3-4 hours at a time. Problem was, we couldn't break him of the swaddle or the nursing at night or the rocking to sleep. So, we would get him to sleep and then swaddle him and then have to get him back to sleep. We were so naivee. When I look back, I just smile and shake my head.

When Xavier was 7 months old, though, we realized something had to be done. No one was sleeping. He was up every 3 hours. He also couldn't be swaddled forever. I could just hear him asking his college roommates to swaddle him before bed. We broke him of the swaddle and got him into his beloved sleep sacks (still have to keep him in those to prevent him from climbing out of his crib). I went to the library and checked out two books recommended by Baby 411: Sleeping Through The Night by Jodi Mindell, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Richard Ferber and Let The Children Come Along The Infant Way by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo. Some of what I read terrified me but all of them taught me something. I went with Dr. Ferber's book in the end.

Now hold on, anyone out there who just cringed. It isn't all about crying. I had already decided I wasn't going to shut the door on X until he cried himself to sleep. Ferber actually wants as little tears as possible. But to undo some of these habits, X was going to have to cry some. So was mommy. We had a wonderful bedtime routine, too. Bath, snack, stories, prayers, songs, rocking to sleep, put in crib asleep, sneak out of room, wake up 2 hours later, rock back to sleep, wake up 2 hours later, rock back to sleep, etc.

I learned a lot from Dr. Ferber about sleep. The most important was about sleep cycles. As we sleep and move from one sleep cycle to the next (non-REM to REM and back again), we do an environment check. If everything is the way it was when we fell asleep, we go right back to sleep without waking up. But if your 7 months pregnant and realize you have to pee, then you will fully wake up to go. Or, if you dropped your pillow, you will wake up a little to get it. Or, if you fell asleep on the couch and realize you are now in bed, you will wake up confused, perhaps disoriented and try to figure out how you got into the bed. For Xavier, he would wake up and think "wait, I'm not rocking anymore and my mom is gone." He would then fully wake up and need those same conditions in which he fell asleep the first time to get back to sleep this time. Hence, crying out for someone in the middle of the night, several times a night because he needed us to help him go back to sleep. He didn't know how to do it on his own.