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]