parenting

Admitting Absolute Defeat

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Remember that super optimistic post I wrote about Oliver’s sleep schedule only a few months ago? Well, what goes up, must come down.

Boy, where to even start.

It all started when we got back from vacation. He had been sleeping so well before that, so we already had the plan to put him in his own room when we got back. We totally failed to see how vacation had changed everything, and did not adjust our plans accordingly.

As vacation had worn on, he was crying more and more and having more and more trouble going to sleep. So when we got back and I confidently put him in the crib, he just sobbed and sobbed. All of my enthusiasm and back-patting for how easy things were going to be went right out the window. We tried letting him cry, but that got us nowhere. He sobbed and sobbed and never stopped.

Now the plan was to put Evie and Oliver in the same room, but it wouldn’t really be fair to dump this problem off onto her. So Evie started sleeping in our room, and I started sleeping in her bed in Oliver’s room (with earplugs to get through all the nightly crying!) Every night he would just wake up sobbing and sobbing, and just unable to go back to sleep.

After a week or so, I took a breath and said, “Wait a minute, let’s reset.” I thought about where we were before vacation, and how to get back there, or what I did in the first place to get to the point where I could leave and he would just go to sleep. So we started over. Eventually, we got to the point where I stayed in the room, but I just sat on the floor until he went to sleep. He didn’t cry, just went to sleep. So we were at least back to square 1.

So this seemed like progress, until we had a really bad night, where he just wouldn’t stop crying. Eventually, Sara had to come in and sleep with him. This was very discouraging for me. He ended up being sick, so I think maybe he just wasn’t feeling that well that night.

The following night, miracle beyond miracles, he slept through the whole night!

So it seemed like we had finally made a break through. However, I think that was the last time he slept through the night. Every night after that was a little bit worse. And even worse than that, Evie had been sleeping in the bed with Sara for about 2 weeks at point, and she was losing the ability to sleep by herself, always wanting company. So not only were we not solving Oliver’s sleep problems, but now we were creating sleep problems in Evie. I certainly didn’t want to get Oliver sleeping in his bed, only to end up with Evie in ours instead.

I had resorted to sleeping on the floor, since the creakiest bed in the world would wake him up whenever I climbed into bed, or shifted in the night. I was really on pins and needles in there, trying not to wake him up, since it could bring on an hour long sob-fest. The floor seemed like the lesser of two evils.

So finally we decided to put Evie in the bed in there, with me continuing to sleep on the floor. Best case scenario, her presence would help him sleep, worst case, we wouldn’t be any worse off with Oliver, but at least we could try to keep Evie from getting used to sleeping in our bed. Unfortunately, it ended up being the later case.

Furthermore, a new problem started to develop. Having Oliver and I in the room with her was too exciting for Evie. So she started to revert to her customary awake time of 5 a.m., which would of course wake Oliver up. So we eventually fell into a sort of rhythm of the 3 of us sleeping in there, with me on the floor. Oliver would wake up 1 or 2 times a night, and Evie would wake up 1 or 2 times a night, finally culminating in a 5 a.m. wake up. Weeks went by.

Finally it just became obvious that, at almost 6 weeks, things were not going to improve. I started beginning the night in my bed until the first time Oliver woke up, and then sleeping on the floor after that, but even still the whole thing was taking a toll. I was so exhausted from waking up so often and so early, and so sore from sleeping on the floor, that I was really starting to get frustrated.

Even the things that had been working were starting to erode. It was obvious that my presence in the room was keeping him awake, and yet, if I tried to go out, he would get so upset. Some nights I would resolve myself to let him cry until he went to sleep, but after literally more than an hour, I couldn’t take it anymore. At that point, he was usually so exhausted, that all I would have to say was, “Oliver, lay down.” and he would go to sleep. But it was like I had to do that, or else he would never be able to go to sleep by himself, no matter how long it went. He just was not able to calm himself down or go to sleep without at least *something* from me.

The final straw for me was one night when he had been sobbing for going on 45 minutes or so and Evie started sobbing herself saying, “I’m tired but I can’t go to sleep when Oliver is crying!” I felt so bad about that. I had always been very sensitive about not putting any of this on Evie. She mothers him so much as it is, and I felt like it was shifting the burden from the parents, where it belonged, to her shoulders. That didn’t seem right. One night she even tried sleeping on the floor, to comfort him that da da was there. It was sweet, but made me feel bad.

So we’re taking a break. 6 weeks is too long for the house to go without sleep. Oliver and I need a break from each other, so Sara is taking over as Sleepmaster General. Oliver is back in the travel crib in our room. If he howls all night long (and believe me, so far he has…Sara hasn’t had any more success than I did), at least Evie can get some sleep (although she still complains that his crying from the other room keeps her up). There have been some ups and downs (one night I was sleeping until Oliver decided to try and bite a significant chunk out of my back, for no reason… unpleasant way to wake up, let me tell you!), and we’re not exactly sure where to go from here. All we know is that whatever we were doing before wasn’t working.

And to think I was SO SURE it was going to be so easy this time around!

Sibling Rivalry

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Oliver and Evie have always gotten along a pretty well. She obviously loves him very much, and for his part, he generally puts up with the abuse. When he got old enough to take an interest in her toys, things went downhill a little bit, but it was still okay. Now, however…I think it is a combination between his greater mobility and interest in objects in general, and her realization of just how much attention he gets, or how much attention she *doesn’t* get.

I tell you, it gives me a much greater appreciation for what it is like to be a younger sibling. I feel like I owe my sister an apology! It’s not just that they get beat up, although they do, but it’s more all the things that they don’t get that the older sibling got. Especially just in terms of amount of attention paid, or amount of one-on-one time. And you just can’t help thinking about him without comparing him to your older child.

With Evie I felt like we just spent the whole time holding our breath, waiting for her to do the next amazing thing. With Oliver, it’s almost like he’ll do something and then I’ll be like, “Oh yeah, that’s amazing, I almost forgot. When Evie did that, I jumped on the blog and put it up immediately.” Evie never had to share the limelight for her big achievements.

The ironic thing is that, in a few years, Evie is going to be annoyed with Oliver wanting to do what she’s doing, following her around, copying her, etc. But right now, it’s exactly the opposite! Any toy Oliver grabs, she has to have it, even if she’s never shown the slightest interest in it before. We will watch Oliver walk over and pull a toy out of the toy box, and then Evie will shout from across the room, “I had it first!”

The past few weeks, whenever Oliver is getting any kind of attention, Evie has to insert herself in there. And 3 year olds are not subtle. If Oliver is crying, she starts fake crying. If we’re taking a video of him, Evie tries to stand in front of the camera. If we’re just not paying attention to her, she will just punch her brother in the face.

Obviously this stuff is not acceptable, but on the other hand, I totally understand where she is coming from. I really feel bad for her. I try to make sure to give her attention when I notice that we are giving him some attention, or when she gets that look in her eye like she is going to push him over.

But isn’t this just another way that older sibling have it better? When she was little, she got all the attention. Now, when it’s Oliver’s turn to get some attention, we have to remember to give her *more* attention, so she doesn’t get upset. It seems like it’s not fair to Oliver, but I guess that’s just the way it is.

So, Rachael, if the 3 year old version of me treated you even a little bit the way Evie treats Oliver, then I apologize completely!

The boy just wants to go to sleep

/ Shane / 1 Comment

I feel like every time I write a post about Oliver, it is a compare and contrast with Evie. I guess that’s just how it goes for the second child (Rachael or Anna, care to comment?). But lately we have transitioned to Oliver falling asleep on his own, and it was night and day different than it was with Evie.

Currently, Oliver is sleeping in the travel crib in our room, as Sara is not quite ready to lose her overnight cuddle buddy to Evie. He is absolutely a joy at that time of the day. After he comes out of the bath and gets greased, he signs night-night to everyone and gives kisses, followed by blowing kisses. I take him into our bedroom and read him a few books, which he anticipates with such joy that he usually giggles uncontrollably. After we read a few books, I put him into his crib. He settles his lion in the crook of his arm and I cover him with his blanket. He also usually points furiously to his lion, because I used to always ask him where his lion was, so he got into the habit. Then we usually play a little peekaboo over the side of the crib, and I turn off the light.

For a while I would sing to him until he fell asleep, but he just kept going to bed easier and easier, until it got to the point that I would just lay there in the dark quietly (and possibly *ahem* fall asleep for a bit) until he fell asleep. Finally I kept saying to Sara, “I think I could just leave, and he wouldn’t mind. I think he would just go to sleep.”

So I started doing exactly that: after I get him settled with his lion and his blanket, I turn out the light, say goodnight and leave. For the first week or so, I was sure he was going to howl at some point, but he never really did. He just lays quietly until he goes to sleep.

Compare that to the completely depressed and defeated post I wrote a few years ago on the same topic, except regarding Evie. And the interesting thing is that Oliver is almost exactly the same age as Evie was when we moved her out, so even that is about the same. In some weird way, I feel like this sort of justifies all the trouble we went through with Evie’s sleep: all the trouble we went through WASN’T because we are awful parents! Kids are just different, and “conventional wisdom” doesn’t always work the same for every baby. That girl just doesn’t sleep! She still doesn’t, to this day.

Now it’s not completely resolved as of yet. He still wakes up occasionally in the night (at least once, usually when we come to bed, and sometimes that’s it), and our ultimate plan is to put him in his crib in Evie’s room. So we’re not there yet. But there’s not really any reason to think these things would be that difficult, based on what’s gone so far.

In addition to personality differences between the two of them, there’s probably an aspect of this that’s on us. It could be that we’re a lot more laid back about the whole thing, or maybe just too busy to spend much time worrying about it. But it’s a chicken and an egg kind of problem, because maybe the reason we’re so laid back about it now, is because he’s so laid back about it.

I really can’t tell you how relieved I am about how the whole thing is going down (before I jinxed it by writing this, of course).

I think this is a bad sign of things to come

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Since about 9 months, Oliver has been able to turn the handle on the back door. However, recently we have gotten into something a little more troubling: climbing. This is something that I have seen other parents deal with, but we haven’t had to deal with ourselves. Evie was never even the slightest bit interested in climbing things. But here’s Oliver, barely able to walk yet, and he’s climbing all over everything.

The other day, he climbed up on the open dishwasher and took a bread knife out of the silverware drawer. He’s scaled the stool in the bathroom and turned on the sink at least 5 times. He’s also gone headfirst into the tub a few times, trying to climb over the edge.

How is he old enough for this? How can he climb before he can really walk? Clearly, this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

He has been learning some new words lately. His previous words were “Nala”, “more”, “book”, “tickle”, “mama”, and “ball”. For ball in particular, he gets it pretty easily from pictures or even from the cover of a book about balls that doesn’t even have a picture of a ball on it. So he definitely understands the concept.

His new words are “uh-oh”, “cheese”, and “Ella”. The last refers to his favorite book of the moment, Ella Elephant, which he is constantly requesting. He’s also put together a couple of two word sentences, such as “more book” and “book mama”. (In other words, his obsession with books has not ended)

He pretty much babbles all the time, so sometimes it sounds like he says things. Sometimes it is hard to tell if he really learned a word, or if he’s just repeating the sounds back. And then sometimes there are a few words that he’s said a couple of times, but I’m not sure if he completely gets, such as “up” (to be picked up), “Elmo”, and “shoes”.

As far as physical things, he finally got his 6th tooth, after it teased us for weeks. He still has very little hair, except in the very back, at the nape of his neck. He’s shaking his head no, though he doesn’t understand why yet. He signs “more”, “book”, “milk”, “train”, and “night-night”.

He gives kisses and also blows kisses. His favorite game is to play chase around the bed at night. He washes Evie’s back in the bath. He pretends to put ointment on himself, putting his finger to the tip and then rubbing it on his chest. (I’m sad that he has to get so much ointment on himself that he has started mimicking it!) When you pick him up, he often lays his head on your shoulder to cuddle.

That’s Oliver! Our cuddly, climbing, talkative boy!

Scaredy Cat

/ Shane / 6 Comments

Evie is quite the Nervous Nelly these days.

She is afraid to have her head out of the covers. She has to take a stuffed animal (preferably a big one) to leave her room. She won’t go downstairs by herself, in fact, she won’t go half way down the hallway, even if you’re watching. She won’t be the first one down the stairs or the last one up the stairs. She can’t go to the bathroom by herself, even with the door open and us in the next room. Always, always, there are “monsters”.

I believe that she is truly scared. I spent a lot of time as a child being scared to death. I have a very fertile imagination, and so does she. And, much like I did when I was a kid, she sort of courts disaster. For example, she spends all day, every day playing “monsters” at school, so is it that much of a surprise that her mind turns to monsters when she is alone?

I also believe she, like any kid her age, is a master manipulator. There’s a fine line between not wanting to walk downstairs by herself and screaming, “I’m scared, I can’t take it anymore!” and trying to get out of her timeout, when she’s a couple of feet away from where I’m standing. I think she can detect that being afraid is something I am sensitive of, and she knows she can use it against me. It’s a hard one for me to ignore.

We’re not completely heartless. We don’t force her to do things, and we do try to be sensitive about this. One time Sara gave her the bottom piece of the fridge to use as a club for self-protection when she went to the bathroom. We let her sleep with her fake sword in her bed. And I even made a sign for her door (with her input of course) that says, “Don’t open this door, there’s giants in here!” (Monsters, of course, being afraid of giants, would run away and not open the door.) Even as we’re doing this, we always re-enforce that monsters don’t exist, and even if they did, we are safe in our own home. But so far, no amount of assurances on our part can make her feel better.

Any suggestions from you parents out there? Should we just ignore it until it goes away? Is she just doing this because she knows it’s my weakness?

Or is our house actually full of monsters that we adults have lost the ability to sense?