Go The F*** To Sleep, The Reboot

Tags

breastfeeding, infant sleep, night weaning, nursing to sleep, parenting, sleep, sleep patterns

People love to ask you how your baby sleeps, and I have occasionally told people that Fritter sleeps “great!” only then to clarify to say that she still wakes several times a night.

You see, our bar is set LOW.

Until he was nearly two, Owl was waking multiple times in the night, usually every hour and a half.

 

Meanwhile, Fritter from day one would sleep in two to three hour stretches. There were some caveats – she couldn’t be put down, for example. I tried. Oh, how I tried. But if you put her down, she would wake up, until about 11 pm in the evening.

Those first couple of months I spent my evenings watching The Mindy Project with her nursing and fussing, and about an hour after she fell asleep I would transfer her to the Moses basket and she would sleep for another couple of hours.

Compared to Owl, that felt like a MIRACLE.

Once my anxiety about SIDS was relieved enough that I could leave her alone to sleep (around 5 months), I started nursing her down on my bed and then just sneaking away. By adding our trusty old Sleepy Suit to the mix, I was actually able to pick her up off of the bed and transfer her to the Pack N Play next to our bed (the successor to the Moses basket).

And so, I have been pretty okay with her sleep overall. She would go down to sleep at around 8 pm, sleep until midnight, until 3, until 5 or 6, and then until 7 or 8.

I could HANDLE that.

Plus, she has two solid naps a day, one in the morning at around 9:30 am that often runs until 11 or 12, and another around 4 pm that goes until 5 or 6.

Golden.

But lately, that has been falling apart.

Overthinking Sleep Aids

Tags

anxiety, babies, books, classical conditioning, comfort object, cry it out, infant sleep, insomnia, lovey, music, no-cry sleep solution, operant conditioning, over-thinking, parenting, psychology, sleep, sleep routines

Hi, I’m Carol and I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

I am using the above as a disclaimer, because this is going to be some classic Carol inconsequentiality.

I’ve read and re-read (parts of) The No-Cry Sleep Solution and I am satisfied that it will meet my needs. As a dog trainer, part of me was hesitant about this book, because the one thing I couldn’t really by-pass in my brain was the little voice that says “cry it out relies on operant conditioning. What could possibly work that does not use operant conditioning, and consequently, CIO?”

After all, how do you teach  puppy to sleep in his crate? Let him whimper. The whimpering behaviour is not rewarded and he learns to stay quiet in his crate. Simple.

But Babby is a lot younger than a puppy. He doesn’t even have his milk teeth yet. If he were a puppy he’d still be snuggling at his mother’s nipples, not whimpering alone in a crate. A puppy, by the time it’s old enough to come home, is developmentally much more like a two year old.

So here I was, trying to find a way to violate basic principles of psychology, and feeling pretty stupid about it.

Then I read the book and wanted to smack myself for being such a moron.

CLASSICAL conditioning.

You know, Pavlov’s dog? Ring a bell and it drools? The form of conditioning that was “discovered” first and the principles of which must be thoroughly understood before operant conditioning (reward/punishment learning) can even be attempted?

FORGOT ALL ABOUT THAT.

The really stupid thing is that I have insomnia.

All the recommendations for people with insomnia are based on classical conditioning:

• Build positive sleep associations (don’t force yourself to lie awake and miserable because that will make you hate sleep more; just get up for a while before lying back down and trying again)
• Create a soothing bedtime routine (dim lighting, warm bath, quiet time with a book)
• Avoid doing things which aren’t sleep (or sex) in bed (so you don’t associate bed with homework, worrying, arguing, stress, etc – actually, I bet they’d rather you don’t have sex in bed either, but I guess they had to draw the line at certain practicalities).
• Etc

I even read Stanley Coren’s book about sleep years ago and he even talked about how the best way to get babies to sleep well was to build positive sleep associations.

Duh.

So, yeah, The No-Cry Sleep Solution tells you how to classically condition your child to fall asleep at certain sleep cues. She talks about bedtime routines (we have one, but it isn’t long enough), weaning baby off of the booba (a definite sleep-association which needs to change if the baby is to learn to self-soothe), and creating other cues that the baby associates with going to sleep, such as a “lovey” (don’t have) and special sleep sounds (we only have “shhh”).

I have been hoping and hoping that Babby would turn into a thumb sucker, but it just doesn’t seem to be happening. So I am still his nighttime soother and this results in him needing to nurse every time he wakes up. I know perfectly well that he’s not actually hungry, but he screams like a banshee without it. The author explains that Babby’s sleep association with booba is so strong that he thinks he NEEDS it to go back to sleep, which is a problem because people naturally wake up every couple of hours. Most of us just roll over and go back to sleep, but if you think you need a booba in order to sleep, you might get upset. She has some tips on how to wean him off of booba, namely popping the booba out of his mouth as soon as he starts to fall asleep, so the association at least doesn’t get any stronger.

In the meantime, I am to introduce a lovey to take my place as cuddle-object, and some cue-music. If I keep the lovey with us whenever he is nursed to sleep, it will smell like me and he will associate it with being nursed to sleep. If I play the same music every time as he is falling asleep, he will associate that with nursing to sleep. The goal is to get to the point where the presence of the lovey and the sound of the music kick-off the sleeping process, while I slowly reduce the amount of nursing he gets before sleep until eventually he falls asleep at the sound of the music/presence of the lovey.

While she never once uses the term “classical conditioning” or allude to Pavlov, her instructions are clear. Pair the conditioned stimulus (lovey/music/bedtime routine) with the unconditioned stimulus (however the baby normally falls asleep, i.e. on the booba) so that it is associated with the unconditioned response (sleep). Eventually, the introduction of the conditioned stimulus (lovey/music/bedtime routine) will result in a conditioned response (sleep). It worked for Pavlov in getting a dog to drool on command. It worked when I taught Beloved Dog how  to pee on command. Why didn’t I think of it as a way to get Babby to sleep on command??

All of this is totally psychologically sound, and now that I think about it, is more psychologically sound than the cry-it-out operant conditiong approach. After all, none of the insomnia tips I have ever read have said “cry frustratedly and miserably in bed until you finally fall unconscious.” So if they don’t recommend it for adults, why do we think it’s the best strategy for babies?

Anyhoo…

Because I’m me, and I overthink everything, I now need to pick exactly the right bedtime lovey and music. After careful examination of all Babby’s age-appropriate toys, I have selected our Eric Carle brand Very Hungry Caterpillar that we picked up in New York, and which you can find pictures of on my Flickr page. It’s a nice, long, huggable baby shape and I approve of its message.

For music, my only option is a hand-me-down lamb that my Boy Cousins used to sleep to, which plays Mary Had A Little Lamb with a wind-up key. Babby already enjoys this music box, although it’s a little sprightly for sleepy time. However, PH is worried about it because the toy is over 20 years old and has metal turn-key. It doesn’t look super safe for a tiny baby. Better for a slightly older child who doesn’t poke himself in the eye when trying to put something in his mouth.

So THAT sent us to the internet to look at other musical options.

Now. I could get a music box or one of those crib-aquarium things that plays music, and use it in combination with the caterpillar lovey, or I could get a glo worm or similar which is music AND lovey all in one.

I’m agonizing over it. Because I am me.

On the one hand, I like the idea of a combo-lovey. If he could trigger his own sleep music, that would be fantastic. Talk about self-soothing! 

On the other hand, I’m an old-fashioned gal and I’m not big on the lovey-needs-batteries idea. When I was a little kid I had (okay, still have) a blankie. My blankie didn’t need no stinking batteries. My blankie didn’t need no flashy lights. I like the idea of my child hauling around a Very Hungry Caterpillar which PH and I bought on our baby-moon in New York. Feels delightfully literary and there’s a family story to it. But it doesn’t play music or give off a comforting light in the darkness.

So, folks, what to do?

Low-tech but literary lovey and music box that I would need to turn on myself at night, or fisher price gadget that plays music for Babby when he hugs it?

The pathetic thing is that I won’t get really serious about sorting out Babby’s sleep associations til I have figured out this important issue.

Oy.

Happy Four-Months, Babby!

Tags

4 month old, babies, breast milk, child development, common cold, infant sleep, over stimulation, tummy time

Babby is four months old today!

Babby enters 2011!

He had his appointment with the pediatrician on Wednesday, the day he turned 17 weeks old.

Good news – his weight gain this month was fine. He’s now 6 kilograms, and seems to be holding steady just under the 15th percentile. The pediatrician was happy and says that Babby may have been “finding his own size” and will probably maintain this place in the percentiles. That’s fine with me. It was dropping from 85th to 15th that I didn’t like.

For the most part, parenting Babby is easier than it used to be. He no longer stays awake for 8 hour stretches,

He gets bored quickly though, so I have to walk him around the house a lot, showing him a bookshelf and letting him run his hands along the books, then showing him a curtain and letting him finger the curtain, and so on ad nauseum.  I trawled Craigslist and am sending Perfect Husband on a pick-up errand to get a Jolly Jumper for ten bucks after work today. I’m not thoroughly convinced that it won’t shatter my baby’s legs, but dangit, I need new ways to amuse this kid.

He does like his tummy time mat if I prop him on a pillow so he can’t flip himself over immediately. He likes to grab the toys I place in front of them with both hands, and then he opens his mouth wiiiiiiiiide like a monster from a Japanese action flick, and brings the toy to his mouth where he bites down on it viciously.

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…Unfortunately, it is so exciting that his delighted squeals and aggressive toy-eating quickly devolve into over stimulated screeching. He looks both delighted and angry all at once and I have to come rescue him before his rage gets the upper hand.

Babby’s evening sleeping patterns have fallen apart recently. He has been waking almost hourly some nights. You hear a lot about the “4 month sleep regression”, and I don’t know if this is it, or if the  problem is a result of the fact that Babby has been fighting off my cold. He had a fever last week, which is around the time that the sleep fell apart. But then it went away and it seemed fine, except for his waking up screaming every hour all night long. Now he is starting to sniffle and cough, and yet his sleep was BETTER last night.

I have no idea what’s going on.

I mean, he has reflux, AND he is fighting off a cold AND he’s been chewing on his hands and drooling for weeks now, so we think he’s starting to teethe. He could be all kinds of uncomfortable. So how do you know what causes any particular unexpected wake-up?

I’m very, very tired, since I’m getting over this cold myself. Also, the day Babby suddenly started snuffling was the day my sore throat came back with a vengeance.

(As a side note, being unable to succumb to the cold medications and just CRASH is a new form of torture. Being kept up repeatedly in the night when your body wants to sleep and heal itself is decidedly un-fun. Poor Perfect Husband came down with the cold too, but since Babby doesn’t need his father’s boobas to eat, PH had the luxury of collapsing into a ten hour sleep of the dead while I glared malevolently at his recumbent form, consumed by jealousy. He made up for it the next day by contritely taking Babby downstairs and giving him a bottle of pumped milk while I caught a couple more hours’ sleep.)

Anyway, I am getting rid of Babby’s cold once and for all.

…This morning, I put breast milk up his nose.

What a Cluster-Fuss

Tags

babies, cluster feeding, colic, crying, fussing, infant sleep, sleep

So, on Wednesdays I have to strap the baby into the car and drive an hour to the Women’s hospital for a post-partum group. On the plus-side, it’s in the mornings, so he usually sleeps in the car on the way there and only fusses moderately between eating and sleeping during the actual session. On the down side, morning is when I usually get the majority of my sleep so I am running off of three hours sleep and it finishes around noon, so he screams part of the way home.

Anyway, the group focuses a lot on how to not go insane, and emphasizes self-care with chipper little acronyms like N.E.S.T.S., S.M.A.R.T.S., and so on.

So they were working on goal-setting, and they give you things to aim for, like three square meals a day or four hours of uninterrupted sleep. They asked me what I thought I needed to work on and I said I wasn’t getting three meals a day, more like 1-2 plus snacks. So the group starts problem solving for me, trying to set a Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Reachable, Time-Sensitive, Supported goal.

It went like this:

Group Leader: “So, sometimes you get lunch, and you always get dinner?”

Me: “Yes, my husband cooks dinner and feeds me when he gets home. We take turns holding the baby while the other eats.”

Group Leader: “What about breakfast?”

Me: “That’s my sleep-when-he-sleeps time. I keep napping whenever he sleeps until I feel rested and get up, and that’s often not til late morning, so lunch is also kind of breakfast.”

Group Leader: “So let’s set a goal of regular lunches! What would you say are the main obstacles to your eating lunch?”

Me: “It depends on the day. If he is still sleeping when I get up, I can sometimes grab a shower and shove some food into my mouth before he wakes up for the day. If he wakes me up, then I probably won’t have a chance to eat lunch. I’ll eat crackers or something while I breastfeed, but not a real lunch.”

Fellow Mother(s): “I know, there’s so much you want to get done when they fall asleep that it’s easy to forget to eat. I have this problem too!”

Me: “I would eat if he slept. He doesn’t sleep.”

Group Leader: “It feels that way, sometimes, I know, but you know, it’s normal for breastfeeding babies to wake and eat frequently.”

Me: “No, I mean, he’s often up for five, six, seven hours in a row. He eats, and he cries, and he eats, and he cries, but he doesn’t sleep.”

Fellow Mother(s): *sympathetic murmurings and tales about their own babies’ colic, and suggestions about gripe water etc.*

GL: “He’s up for six hours? How old is he again?”

Me: “Four weeks, and yes, regularly. On good days, he doesn’t get really cranky until late afternoon, and the day goes mostly ok: I can often get him to sleep if I put him in this Sleepy Wrap, like he is now, and he screams for a bit then sometimes falls asleep.”

GL: “Okay, so when he’s asleep in his carrier, then you can eat, right?”

Me: “Right, although stuff falls on his head. But yesterday, for example, he was up at 10:30 in the morning and crying and eating, crying and eating all day and until nearly 11 pm that night. In that time he only had half an hour of sleep at from 12:30-1 pm and two hours from 3:30 to 5:30 pm. ”

GL: “You say he fell asleep at 11 pm last night. Does he sleep overnight, then?”

Me: “Yes. I mean, he wakes to be breastfed every hour and a half to two hours, but in between feedings he sleeps. Then from late morning/early afternoon until late at night that he’s awake. So I get most of my sleep late at night and in the morning.”

GL: “I feel bad for you having to come here in the mornings, now!”

Me: “Well, in a way it sucks because I get no sleep, but on the other hand, it means he’s actually relatively quiet during these group sessions.”

*Babby has fussed and cried in a manner disruptive to the group at least three times by this point: Before being breast fed, a bit between breasts, and after breastfeeding when placed back in his Sleepy Wrap. He has been the ONLY baby to fuss and cry during this session at all. The seven week old has been sleeping peacefully, and the older babies have been babbling happily or nursing quietly*

GL: “…Is he asleep now?”

Me: *checking him in his carrier* “Ye… no, wait, nope.”

FM(s): “No, his eyes are wide open.”

GL: “…Okay, so can you eat while he is awake like this?”

Me: “If he’s quietly awake, like he is now, then I can eat while he’s awake. But in the afternoon he’s not usually quietly awake, he’s crying. I can’t just put him in his basket and let him scream. I physically can’t do it. I can put him in this wrap, and let him cry himself to sleep sometimes, because then I feel like I’m attending him if I’m carrying him. But I can’t let him cry in his basket.”

GL: “So if you had him on you in his carrier, but crying, then could you eat?”

Me: “Well, see, he claws at my face and neck while he cries, so I can’t get food past him into my mouth. It’d be like trying to get past the arms of an attacking squid.”

*A moment of stunned and sympathetic silence from the group leaders and my fellow mothers.*

GL: “…I feel like we should be feeding you RIGHT NOW!”

So, basically, the tl;dr of it all is that my baby cries so much that it astounded all of the other mothers with colicky babies, and confounded the poor Group Leader. In the end, the general consensus was that my goal for this week should be to eat lunch every day, even if the baby is screaming, and that to facilitate this I should make sure PH leaves me some dinner leftovers in the fridge every evening, so the next day I just need to pop it in the microwave and gobble it.

The thing that astounds me is that emotionally I’m actually doing okay, despite a baby that only sleeps two and a half hours in a 12 hour period some days. I feel way better than when I was pregnant – much more balanced – and I never feel angry or upset with Babby, even after hours of crying. But the crying thing is definitely exhausting on both me and PH. I went to the library and checked out more books on baby sleep. The Baby Sleep Guide says

“Some babies will stay up for hours, nursing and fussing, nursing and fussing, sometimes for hours on end…. The cluster-fuss has a way of striking just as parents are getting ready to sit down and relax together after a long day. The chaos and crying can feel like complete insanity….And it’s rough on the parent when nothing seems to help the baby.”

They’re telling us.