sleep troubles

Bigirl Bed

/ Shane / 7 Comments

So Christmas came and went, and Evie got piles and piles of wonderful presents to play with. But the marquee present, the gift to end all gifts, was the big girl bed. If you asked her what she wanted for Christmas, or what she asked Santa for, there was only one answer (pronounced as one word in Evie-speak: “bigirl bed”).

We were away from the house for Christmas Eve, but Santa left a note saying there was “something big” waiting at the house in Chicago. Sure enough, when we got home, there was the brand new “office bedroom”, resplendent with a new bed, dresser and book shelves. “Everything turned brown!” she exclaimed, since her old furniture was white. It was everything Evie had hoped for and more. We took a video of it, but if you don’t spend a lot of time around her, you would probably think she wasn’t very excited about it. She’s a pretty low-key girl, so you have to know her to really see the things she’s doing that show she is excited. So you’ll have to take my word on it when I tell you that it was that quintessential childhood moment when you get everything you’ve always wanted.

Now, for our part, there were two big concerns going into this: 1) would we lose our hard won gains with sleeping, and 2) would it be okay with her on a different floor of the house.

It turns out, there was no need to worry at all!

From the very first night, she slept perfectly and peacefully, waiting to get out of bed in the morning until we come down and get her out. She doesn’t set a toe outside of her bed until morning. In retrospect, this kind of makes some sense, since she already had the ability to climb out of her crib, but she doesn’t. Also, she doesn’t like to go downstairs by herself due to “scary monsters”, but she has no qualms whatsoever once she is actually in her room. What a relief (especially after hearing some other parents’ horror stories)!

Because we were worried about her downstairs by herself, and in particular worried that we wouldn’t hear her, we finally broke down and bought a baby monitor. It’s kind of funny to buy one at this point, since she’s quite old. We didn’t tell her about it, and she hasn’t noticed it, so we’d like to keep it that way to avoid the dreaded “toddler-monitor-summons”.

Now, I thought I mentioned this on the blog, but I couldn’t find it. When we went to Seattle, we were sleeping in the same room as her. Since we couldn’t really go anywhere while she was sleeping, and we couldn’t have any lights on in the room or anything, we mostly just ended up going to bed when she did. This is where we learned that for the first 20 minutes or so, when we always thought she went right to sleep, she really whispers to her stuffed-animal friends. I don’t know what she tells them, but she’s sure telling them something. The monitor confirms that she seems to do this pretty much every night. I still can’t hear more than the occasional word, but it sounds very interesting!

One last thing, on a lighter note. Evie got some lotion for Christmas, (“Just like mommy and daddy!”) but she wasn’t sure what to make of it at first. Sara asked her what she thought it was.

Evie took a long look at the package and exclaimed, “It keeps away bees!” If that’s what she thought it was, she sure was excited about receiving bee repellent.

A ghostly wakeup

/ Shane / 5 Comments

There is a new weapon in the war against Evie waking up too early. We have finally resorted to the supernatural.

Evie has always had trouble staying asleep, some of which has been documented here. Through various tricks and subterfuge, we have sometimes managed to make her sleep in later (by later, I mean 5:30 or 6), but just when we start to congratulate ourselves on our success, she will start a push to get up earlier and earlier. It was in the middle of one such push, that we decided something new had to be done.

The problem is that Evie (and all toddlers) love routines. Everything that happens to her, she tries to incorporate it into a routine. Sometimes this can be used to our advantage, like the routine we use to get ready for bed, and sometimes it hurts us. In this case, her preferred routine was to wake up at about 5, and then have me come in to tell her it was too early. Then we repeated this at 5:40, 5:50, etc. until Sara came in to get her up around 6. She loved to talk about how daddy came in and told her to go back to sleep. And as time went on, the wake ups became earlier, more frequent, and she became more reluctant to go back to sleep.

I started trying to explain to Evie about the clock, and how she can’t get up until the first number is 6. She seemed interested, but I think it was a little much. It was hard to know that the first number was the important one, and the other numbers didn’t matter in this case. Also, Sara pointed out that she wouldn’t be able to understand that 5 is too early, but if she woke up and it was 7, that was okay. So Sara had found some toddler alarm clocks online that you can set to display an icon, such as a sun, when it was okay to wake up, or a moon if it was too soon.

Rather than spending money and buying some specialized clock, we realized we could make do with what we had. We used an extra light timer we had lying around, and we hooked that up to a set of ghost lights that we had hung in her room as a Halloween decoration.

I can’t begin to tell you how fantastically this has worked. She has been sleeping in (or at least staying quiet in her crib, which amounts to the same thing as far as I’m concerned) until 6:30 every day for almost two weeks! And she’s so excited for the ghost lights to come on. The first day, by the time we got into her room, she was literally jumping up and down and pointing at the ghost lights in glee, yelling, “Mommy! Daddy! The ghost lights came on! They said boo and I woke up!”

And this is despite the fact that Sara and I continue to botch the job as much as humanly possible. On the first day, when success was the most important, we accidentally set the time wrong, so that the lights came on like 45 minutes later than they should have. This meant she was yelling for us to come in and we were cringing in our room, trying to decide if we should go in or wait. After that, it took a couple more days before we managed to get the timing right. The timer is not digital, and there is a lot of ambiguity about the time it is displaying.

All in all though, it has been amazing. It has probably been one of the single most effective tools we have used to keep her in bed until a reasonable time. And now that we have the system in place, we are able to adjust her schedule by subtly adjusting the timer over the course of a few days, without her noticing. This is how we moved her from 6 to 6:30, and also how we managed to control the time change without disrupting her sleeping schedule.

The downside is that we’re stuck with ghost lights in her room for the foreseeable future. But maybe someday we can find some other kind of fun light to switch off to.

To sleep, perchance to dream

/ Shane / 6 Comments

One night Evie was crying in her sleep. I went to see what was the matter and she explained to me that, while she was lying in her crib, a frog was trying to eat her legs. I explained to her about dreams and she went back to bed, but this dream stuck with her for several days, until we had to have a lengthy discussion about good dreams and bad dreams, and why bad dreams couldn’t hurt you.

Now, I don’t know about you, but this sounds like a horrifying dream to me, even as an adult. There’s something particularly creepy about it being a giant frog, I can totally picture it. I’ve seen Pan’s Labyrinth.

The fact is, I have very vivid dreams that I almost always remember on a nightly basis. When I was a kid, I was deathly afraid of the dark. I would lie awake nearly every single night with the sheet pulled up to my eyes, getting carried away by my very vivid imagination. Naturally, I would rather Evie was spared from that.

The other day she told me about a dream she had. She was flying down a long hallway, like a bat, while “something with no mouth and no feet” walks behind her. Creepy to the max. On one hand I am proud that she has such a vivid imagination. I think that will serve her well in life.

I’m sure every kid has nightmares. It’s probably not a big deal. Anybody else have any experience with this? How old were your kids when they started having nightmares, and when did they grow out of it?

Miracles do happen

/ Shane / Leave a comment

When we last saw our heroes, Evie was sleeping through the night but getting up very early (4:30 or so).  At first we were pretty excited about that because it was such an improvement over what it had been.  But 4:30 sure is super, super early and it started to be a problem.  We decided to make a rule that she couldn’t get out of her crib before 5:30.  This meant that before long I was back on the floor again in her room.  Usually I drifted in and out of sleep for about an hour while she alternately slept, played or cried.  Finally, at 5:30 (or a little before if I couldn’t take it) I would get her out of the crib.

So we weren’t back to square one by any stretch of the imagination, however, the more things change the more they stay the same.  We decided that at bedtime we would try putting her in bed and letting her fall asleep on her own, rather than reading or singing until she fell asleep.  I was hoping that she would at least become more comfortable to spending time alone in her crib.  I don’t care if she wakes up at 4:30 if she just plays by herself; it was my involvement that I had a problem with!

So we figured she would howl when we left, but she really didn’t.  She cried a little bit for maybe two minutes, and then she was out.  I guess she inherited her parents’ ability to fall asleep fast!  Nap time was a little bit tougher, but she never stayed awake for longer than 15 minutes and we never had to go back in more than once.

And then the most amazing thing happened!  After maybe the second day, Evie just started sleeping in!  She went to bed around 8:10 and slept in to 6:30.  This has been going on for about a week, so it seems to be permanent now.  This morning she slept until 7!  7!  That might not sound like much to you, but 7 is a long, long way from 4:30.  Even to type the sentence fills me with joy!

Clearly she learned some skills that help her fall back asleep without our help.  That was the main thing.  But I think there were also some ancilary things going on as well.  I think that she was at the right age for it.  I think, in retrospect, I also must have been something of a distraction to her.  Certainly when I was trying to read her to sleep she would be silly: playing peekaboo behind the bars, playing with her blanket, kicking the side, etc.  So I guess it works better if I am just out of her hair.

Within just a few nights, she was certainly down with our new routine.  Now as soon as I put her in the crib she says, “Door!” and points.  So, I think our new found sleeping bliss may just be permanent!

Who needs sleep? (Well, you’re never gonna get it)

/ Shane / 2 Comments

So it is no big secret that Evie has not been much of a sleeper.  Can you imagine going 14 months straight without ever sleeping through the night?  Me neither, despite just going through that.  You know, it is what it is, but I do feel a little annoyed when I hear other parents complaining that their child didn’t sleep through the night until 5 months, etc.  And I’m not talking 1 time either, I think she averaged waking up about 4 times a night right up until a month ago.  Even that was something of an improvement though…back around 3 or 4 months, she was waking up every 40 minutes like clockwork.

So Evie’s sleep troubles are not something that I discuss very much with people.  I’ve discovered that in some cases talking about parenting is like talking about politics.  People can have really strong opinions about things and talking about them will not only not convince them to change their mind, but it may cost you a friendship.  Much like with politics I find it very interesting but just easier to not talk about, especially because like with politics I think my opinions on the matter do not strictly follow the majority.  However, after having the success of the last month or so, I want to put this out there to potentially help anybody else who is in the same boat as we were.

So I guess let me start by saying that being a parent is very hard.  You get so much advice from everywhere and it is especially difficult to follow your instincts when it contradicts that advice.  One thing that I’ve learned from books and articles is that much of the “common knowledge” about parenting is folk lore and old wives tales and is usually outright wrong or at the very least not the best way of doing things.  This is especially true of a lot of the info that is passed down from generation to generation and much of that knowledge actually doesn’t go back as far as you think it does.  Also, when compared with most of the world, the U.S. in particular has some very odd ways of doing things when it comes to babies.  But no matter how much you might research a topic and form opinions, you are really sailing on uncharted waters and it is impossible not to second guess yourself.  And this is a person’s life you’re talking about, so it is not really conducive to trial and error.  There are no do-overs.

So our story starts with two main controversial issues; co-sleeping and the “crying it out” method of teaching.  For the first part, Evie started the night in her own bed.  The first time she woke up after we went to bed, she was brought into our bed with us.  Some people are horrified by this for some reason, but I’m not sure why.  Certainly it started as a convinience thing because it was easier to feed her all the times she woke up at night.  But eventually it started to be a strain on both us and her and we suspected that we were keeping her awake as much as she was keeping us awake.

Now everybody’s advice immediately was that Evie would never learn to be independent or sleep by herself unless we allowed her to “cry it out” for a couple hours.  I think every parent’s gut instinct tells them that is the wrong thing to do, but I can certainly understand them falling to the peer pressure.  We didn’t receive too many comments, but we received enough to “know” that we were more or less pampering and babying our child by “rushing in right away to pick her up.”  We started receiving warnings to let her cry it out as early as 2 months old which, in retrospect, was rediculous.  She clearly didn’t have the mental capability to learn any lessons at that age.

The crying it out method doesn’t make sense to me for a couple of reasons.  First, it seems wholly unlikely that, as a species, this is the only way to develop healthy sleeping habits.  I just can’t imagine cave men sitting around going, “Let Ug cry out.  It only way she learn.  Hope no sabertooth tiger hear her.”  It seems like a wholly unnatural thing and if every parent’s gut instinct is that it is wrong (instincts honed over millions of years) , then it probably is.  Second, how can it be that there is only one correct path when it comes to teaching your child to sleep?  Any skill has probably billions of ways it can be learned, except this one?  This one has to be learned this specific way.  All other skills a baby learns by watching you except this one in which she needs to be tortured and punished.  And what lesson are you trying to teach your child anyway?  That they can’t trust you because you won’t come when they call?  I’m not saying it is not an effective way to teach.  It obviously works for, well, everybody.  But if a kinder and gentler way could be found, then I am willing to put in a little extra work to ensure that my daughter could learn sleeping skills in such a way that didn’t involve her passing out from terror and / or anger.  I think that’s fair.

Okay, so at this point we know that we need to do something about her sleeping and we have decided not to let her cry it out despite everyone (EVERYONE) insisting this was the only way to go.  After a couple of false starts, this is the method we used.  And it was surprisingly effective!  After 14 months to have her sleeping 9 hours straight within two weeks seemed like a miracle.  Some of these steps sort of blend together because in some cases they all sort of need to happen at once.

1) Feeding her before her bath

Originally I would give Evie her bath and then hand her off to Sara who would nurse her to sleep.  So the first step was to have Sara feed her before I gave Evie a bath.  In fact, it works best if Evie doesn’t see Sara at all from bath time until the next morning if you want to avoid a sob-fest.

2) Getting her to fall asleep in her crib

Previously we always put Evie to sleep by rocking her in the chair and singing and patting her back.  Of course we periodically made declarations like, “From now on don’t pick her up when she wakes up! Just pat her on the back or something!” but it never worked.  Eventually we would pick her up because she would just be crying so hard.  Also, we sometimes tried to put her in her crib so she could get “acclimated” to being in there, but it didn’t seem to make a difference.  So imagine my surprise when one night I randomly tried putting her in the crib and reading to her and she just fell asleep!  So I guess the moral of the story is just try something and see if it works!  Now sometimes at first it took her a lot longer to fall asleep this way, so I decided I needed a really big book because I could read about 30 of her really short books in that amount of time.  We have this collection of Winnie the Pooh stories, so I started reading those.  This ended up working so well that now she begs for “Pooh!” even when she is pretending to go “night night” with her teddy bear.  We’ve restarted the book a 2nd time and I have had to make up many Pooh stories when we have been traveling and didn’t have the book with us.

3) Night weaning

Okay, so far so good, we have her falling asleep in her crib.  But she’s still waking up about 4 times a night (which may actually be an improvement believe it or not).  The next step was removing her midnight snacks.  Like I said it is easier if she doesn’t see Sara at all because it is too tempting.  I think she was waking up naturally and then thinking, “Hey, I’m awake, I might as well get something to eat…” and that was causing her to wake up all the way.  So, we had to make her know eating at night was off limits.

4) Not picking her up

Now we were well on our way; time for the final push.  Now we had to somehow keep from picking her up.  For this part I just had to bite the bullet.  I would put her to bed and when she woke up the first time (usually around midnight) I would go in to her room and sleep the rest of the night on the floor.  Then, whenever she woke up (and the first few nights, this was a LOT) I would be right there to sing her to sleep before she was too awake.  There were a few times when I had to pick her up because she was crying too hard, but I was actually really surprised at how quickly this started working!  I thought there was no way she’d go back to sleep without picking her up, but I guess the combination of knowing she wasn’t going to eat or see Sara and being used to falling asleep in her crib without being held was enough.  One thing I learned was to steel my nerves.  Often just when I thought, “Okay, I just have to pick her up” she would stop crying and fall asleep 2 seconds later.

Now I know what you’re saying.  “Isn’t that the same as letting her cry it out?”  I guess to some degree it is.  It was certainly heartbreaking to listen to her sob, “mommy mommy mommy” and Sara not being able to come to her.  I’m not saying it wasn’t hard and that there wasn’t some crying, but when she was crying I was there with her to comfort her and to get through a rough and scary time together with her, not abandoning her to do it alone.  It was certainly different than the classic idea of parents wringing their hands outside of the door as their child cries for hours at a time.

I guess at the end of the day, it’s kind of like a diet.  There may be many fancy names and techniques to use, but underneath they all agree on a couple of very simple principles.  There will be crying.  But I don’t think you have to be callous and harden your heart to your baby (at least not all the way).  This worked for us and if I had it to do all over again, I don’t think I would do it any other way (other than maybe trying this sooner!)  Well, actually, one thing that I would change would be to sleep on an air mattress.  Sara kept offering, but I thought it would be in the way and I wasn’t sure how long it was going to take, so I kept saying, “Surely it will only be for a few more nights, it isn’t worth the hassle!”  But, in retrospect, I had some pretty sore nights!

So after 2 short weeks we had a baby sleeping through the night in her crib.  She gets up very early (~5 a.m.) but compared to not getting an unbroken night of sleep for over a year, I am not complaining!  We had some vacation right after this and we were worried it would mess things up, but it doesn’t seem to have set us back at all.