The No-Cry Sleep Solution For Toddlers And Pre-Schoolers, and an Owl Sleep Update

Tags

books, Elizabeth Pantley, night time, no cry sleep solution for toddlers and preschoolers, parenting, reviews, sleep training, sleeping alone, toddlers

It’s about time I did this review.

I had been holding off until I actually felt like taking the book’s advice.

And I finally did.

And now Owl goes to sleep ALL BY HIMSELF.

For those who have The No-Cry Sleep Solution, you’ll find that this book is much the same… with one important difference.

The No-Cry Sleep Solution is aimed at little babies, babies who are young enough to be below the recommended cut-off for cry it out, according to child psychologists.

I admit to being a little dubious about the Toddlers and Preschoolers edition, because honestly, I think that crying isn’t so bad for kids that old.

If anything, a certain amount of emotional distress is necessary to the developing toddler brain.

But Elizabeth Pantley mirrors my own beliefs back at me perfectly:

I’m a firm believer that babies should never be left to cry until they fall asleep. I also believe that toddlers and preschoolers should not be left for endless amounts of tears and anguish, contrary to some sleep books, which suggest doing this even to the point of vomiting. There are hundreds of ideas for helping a child sleep better without resorting to shutting the door on him and wringing your hands while he wails for hours. I have learned, however, that allowing an older toddler or preschooler a few minutes of fussing or moderate crying is not necessarily evil. Many loving, attached parents have put together complete and considerate sleep plans for their children and allowed a small amount of tears along the way.

[…]

There is a huge difference between putting a child in a crib, shutting the door, and abandoning her to hours of crying versus creating a complete and thoughtful sleep plan that includes a loving before-bed routine and then allowing a few minutes of protest at the time the lights are turned out. There’s also a considerable difference between letting a tiny baby cry in the night and letting a four year old cry when he’s put to bed but would rather stay up and watch a movie. […] So if your no-cry plan turns into a little-bit-of-cry plan, don’t feel like you’ve been a failure.

A lot of the ideas in this book were either ones that I was already carrying over from the original book, or were aimed at a child much older than Owl.

Some tips were ones I had instituted on my own, based on my dog training experience.

For example, she suggests setting a clock radio to go off in the morning and telling the child that they can’t get out of bed until it goes off, thus sending a clear signal about when it is ok to get up.

Well, we have a clock that we turn on at night, which we call “Mr. Sun.” 

Mr. Sun goes to bed with Owl, and we wave night-night to him. He winks, closes his eye, turns into a star (it’s weird to say the sun turned into a star since the sun IS a star, but you know what I mean) and glows blue. In the morning, at the time we set, he lights up and turns into a glowing orange sun again.

Owl learned back in the night-weaning days that Mr. Sun was the signal that meant his fussing would be responded to with more than a simple “Shh, it’s still sleepy times, I’ll see you in the morning.”

His first words in the morning are always “MR SUN IS AWAKE!!”

So that’s that covered. We brought Mr. Sun with us to Disneyland and learned that Owl actually does wake up and lie quietly, waiting for Mr. Sun to turn on in the mornings.

But the place where we have gotten stuck is sitting with Owl until he falls asleep.

We did wean him off of being sung-to.

PH put his foot down last year and refused to continue to feed our extrovert’s need for human interaction any further. If he tried to talk to us, we’d walk out of the room for a minute or two.

THAT caused some “moderate crying” as Elizabeth Pantley would call it.

But he learned, and for months and months and months now I have sat quietly in his room, reading to myself, while Owl drifted off to sleep.

And I knew that it was time to make the next step.

Most of Pantley’s sleep plans involve steps. Wean off of one thing, and then another, and then another. So, we had weaned him off of being nursed to sleep, then we weaned him off of needing us to sing to him… but then we stopped.

It’s not Elizabeth Pantley’s fault.

We were just tired. And I didn’t really mind sitting and reading for half an hour or so in Owl’s room. It was easier than introducing a new battle.

But, honestly.

We really did want to have a kid that you could just kiss goodnight and walk away from, and we both knew perfectly well that it was our OWN fault that we didn’t.

Owl had successfully weaned off of nursing at night. He had successfully weaned off of singing and endless recitations of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. There was zero reason to believe that he wouldn’t wean off of human company while falling asleep just as successfully.

We were just… tired.

And lazy.

And so, I put off this review as well because she tells you exactly what to do about that in her book (she has a whole chapter on it, called “Mommy, Stay!”: Needing A Parent’s Help To Fall Asleep) and I didn’t want to admit that I knew what to do but wasn’t doing it.

So we finally did it.

The “I’ll Be Right Back” Trick.

Pantley recommends weaning the child from the staying routine by making frequent trips outside of the room and quickly returning. The child gets used to you coming and going, and knows that you always do come back. That’s the first step. Over time, you just stay away longer and longer.

Owl was used to this a little already.

Knowing that this was the next step, I did make a point of leaving the room at least once during the evening: fetching my book, running to the bathroom, etc. He usually waited patiently for my return, as long as I wasn’t gone too long.

But that was as far as I had gotten.

Because I am lazy, and tired.

Anyway, last month we told Owl that he was not a baby, but a little boy now, and it was time for him to learn how to fall asleep by himself. So we would be giving him chances to fall asleep by himself, but we’d keep coming back to check on him.

Pantley recommends this as a way to be clear about things.

Once you decide on how you are going to handle bedtime, communicate the news to your child. 

Makes sense.

We told him that when he could fall asleep by himself, he could have a little boy bed, that he could get in and out of all by himself.

“Oooh! Little boy bed? I get in by myself? Ooh! OKAY!”

Owl loves his independence.

That first night, I kissed him, told him I’d be back in a couple minutes, and left the room.

Zero protest.

Nada.

I went in after a few minutes and sat down for a moment, then got up again.

“Mommy, I want yoooooou,” he said as I started to leave.

“I’ll be back in a minute, bud,” I said.

He waited patiently.

We repeated this, oh, maybe four or five times.

The last time I went in, he was asleep.

Seriously? It was THAT easy? I had been geared up for tears and war.

The next night I stayed away for five or ten minutes at a time. He was asleep by the third check in.

The night after that, he was asleep by the second check in.

The night after that, I kissed him goodnight and left without making any promises of return at all.

He fell asleep.

HE FELL ASLEEP.

I CAN NOW KISS MY CHILD GOODNIGHT AND GO DOWNSTAIRS AND WATCH MY HUSBAND GET TEARY OVER UNDERCOVER BOSS IN THE EVENINGS LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING.

I can’t tell you how freeing that is.

We started on Wednesday. On Sunday, Owl demanded his prize, and we delivered.

Little boy bed it is.

And he climbs in it on his own every night.

And he falls asleep on his own every night.

And he doesn’t get out of it until Mr. Sun wakes up.

HALLE-EFFING-LUJA.

…And there wasn’t even any crying.

In Which I Fail But Babby Does Not

Tags

arguments, babies, planning, sleep deprivation, sleep training

PH only had one day off this week. Sunday. So of course, we filled Sunday with plans. 

PH decided that since we were both exhausted from the recent disrupted nights, that Sunday should be dubbed Nap Day.

I pointed out that I don’t really do naps. It’s rare that I actually manage to fall back asleep once sufficiently roused in the mornings, and on the rare occasion that I do, they seem to make me groggy and disoriented, rather than rested. Early nights don’t work for me, either. I need sleep-ins.

PH used to get up with Babby for a couple of hours in the morning on weekends so I could get some extra shut-eye, but over the last couple of months the nights have been so disrupted, and Babby’s morning wake-ups have become so early (often 6 or 6:30 in the morning) that he tends to sleep through Babby’s wake-ups in the morning. Not wanting to disturb him, the man who sometimes works 6 day weeks, I would get up with Babby and usually by the time PH achieved consciousness, I had Babby changed and breakfasted and everything.

So, we decided that this Sunday PH would take Babby in the morning, and I could sleep in. Then, while I put Babby down for his morning nap, PH would get a nap himself. That way we both would get a couple of extra hours.

The rest of the day’s plans were filled with renewing car insurance, shopping for new scrubs for me, groceries, and then dropping Babby off at Pug Mama’s house while we went off to a movie.

Well, you all know how well things go when you plan a herculean number of things into one day.

The first thing to go was our extra sleeps. Babby woke up a little later in the morning than usual, around 7 am, after a semi-disrupted night. His cheerful noises roused both of us, and we talked out the day’s plan a little more. Then PH went to the bathroom, and we both went on autopilot.

I changed Babby’s diaper and sat in the rocker while he played in his room. PH, emerging from the bathroom, was distracted by the shiny internet and sat down at the computer, as he usually does in the mornings before work.

After half an hour or so he became aware of the fact that Babby and I were no longer upstairs. He found us downstairs and I was giving Babby breakfast. We all ate breakfast and then I went back up and put Babby down for his morning nap a little early (so we could get All Those Things Done).

I think PH felt bad about me losing my sleep-in, so he suggested I try and nap with him. I couldn’t fall asleep, and neither could he (although usually PH could nap on a bed of ice and rocks if given the opportunity).

So neither of us got our extra sleep. Nap Day was a fail.

Babby’s morning nap was inexplicably long, so when he woke up we only had time for car insurance, lunch, and then a drive-around to conk Babby out for a while before delivering him to his baby sitter (handing her a tired Babby and saying ‘Have fun!” seemed cruel and unusual).

The rest of the day went fine. We saw our movie, but it went longer than we expected so there was no time for a dinner afterwards. We picked up groceries instead with the remaining time, because we’re romantic like that.

We fetched Babby, who had apparently behaved himself very well, and took him home and put him to bed. We stared mindlessly at Mythbusters and then we took ourselves to bed, too.

That’s when things got weird.

Babby slept.

And slept.

And SLEPT.

He woke up ONCE, at 2, and went down fairly easily. Then he slept until 5 AM.

We should have been rejoicing in the streets, and PH was inclined to do just that.

Problem is, I don’t rejoice at 5 AM.

I don’t do ANYTHING at 5 am, except sleep, or growl.

When PH suggested just ending on a good note and letting Babby get UP for the day, I was all like “OH HELL NO.” The kid was rubbing his eyes and yawning. No reason why he couldn’t go back down for another couple hours and then I could SLEEP.

Except that, yawning and eye-rubbing aside, Babby seemed quite determined to stay awake this time.

“I don’t think he’s going to go back down,” said my husband, the realist.

“HE’LL GO DOWN,” I said through gritted teeth.

PH decided that I was being scary and took himself back to bed, essentially saying, “good luck with that.”

And he wouldn’t go down, the little blighter. He kept yawning, and rubbing his eyes, but he was like “look, you wanted me to sleep and I slept. I’m done now. Up time.”

At 6:30 PH took control and decided that everyone had had enough. It was his usual wake-up time anyway. PH was annoyed with me for not believing him when he had said that Babby wouldn’t go down, and for ending such a successful night with tears and struggle. I was annoyed with the universe for not letting me get some effing morning sleep.

“What good is it to me if he sleeps from 8 am until 5 am?” I asked him, “if I can never fall asleep before midnight? And what message do we send him when we just let him get up when it’s still dark out?”

I was being unreasonable.

I KNEW I was being unreasonable.

But damnit, I wanted to defend my attempts to put him back down, because it’s one thing if I try to get him to sleep to a decent hour and fail. It’s another thing to just GIVE UP and let him get up when it’s still frigging dark out.

What if it is 4:30 am next time? Should I get up then? How about 4 am? How about 3? Why not let him just stay up all night like he wants to and give up on the sleep training entirely?

So PH went to work frustrated with me, and a little scared. I put Babby down for a nap at eight (and he went easily because he’d been up since FRIGGING FIVE) and tried to get some more shut-eye. Maybe another hour or two would restore my faith in the universe.

It usually takes me about half an hour or so to fall asleep, sometimes an hour if I’m trying to nap.

He was awake at nine.

NINE.

I’m not in a good mood.

Today should be a GOOD day. He SLEPT last night!

So why do I feel like an angry ball of fail?

Go The F*** To Sleep: Week 1

Tags

babies, parenting, sleep, sleep training

I can’t decide whether this is working or not. The second night Babby had caught on to our game, and was not so easily tricked into falling asleep. There was a lot of screaming, and singing, and rocking, and screaming.

Now, a week after we’ve started, I’m exhausted and I don’t know whether to feel encouraged, or discouraged.

Good News:

I have been fairly consistent about getting him to fall asleep off of the breast. I’d say a real lapse only happens once every couple of days or so.

Babby no longer bursts into heart broken tears when we lay him in the crib, and he no longer objects to being taken off of the breast and sung to sleep. GENERALLY speaking.

On several nights, like last night, Babby’s wake-ups have been much more spaced than usual, occurring after three hours stretches instead of the usual 1-2 hour stretch.

Often putting him down for nap time or after a wake-up at night takes no longer off the breast now than it did when he was on the breast. Sometimes, it’s even faster.

On multiple locations Babby has rolled over in his crib with his BACK to me and laid there quietly until eventually drifting off into sleep.

For both his naps yesterday, at bed time, and all three wake-ups in the night, Babby drifted off to sleep on his own while staring at his seahorse while I just sat and hummed in the gliding rocker.

Bad News:

There are sometimes nights like the night before last, where he has woken up every hour and then taken an hour or more to go back down EACH TIME.

Sometimes the long sessions are because he won’t stop screaming and kicking his feet, and other times they’re just because he has decided that he would rather play in his crib than sleep, but then starts to scream if we just walk out and leave him to it.

I swear, when he rolls over and gets up and then SMILES at me while standing in his crib, it’s more frustrating than the screaming. If I could just find a way to stop him from FRIGGING STANDING UP, I would thank God on my knees.

If he is lying quietly on his side with his back to me, I can’t tell when he’s really asleep, and if tip-toe out the room before he is properly asleep, he starts to scream and we have to start ALL OVER AGAIN.

The thing that is really frustrating is that everyone talks about teaching him to soothe himself, etc etc.

Well, what if the problem is that he doesn’t want to be soothed? Babby just doesn’t WANT to sleep. He fights it at every pass. Remember when he was a newborn and wouldn’t sleep for EIGHT HOURS AT A TIME?

He has a million tricks for keeping himself awake and he uses them even when he’s sobbingly, eye-rubbingly tired. He seems to think that if he falls asleep, God will eat him.

There’s the kicking feet trick, which he does much the same way I might jiggle my leg to keep myself awake on the road late at night.

There’s the flailing arm trick, which he uses the same way.

The most annoying trick is the Lazarus trick – just as we think we’ve gotten him to sleep, an arm shoots out, grabs the rail of his crib, and then he just, like, HAULS himself out of unconsciousness as he pulls himself to standing FROM HIS SLEEP.

Perfect Girlfriend, who has raised her own child plus multiple siblings, says she has seen babies who can’t soothe themselves, but never a baby that just HATED sleep like Babby does.

So, should I be encouraged by nights like last night, where he woke up three times but in three hours spaces and went to sleep without too much fuss, or discouraged by nights like the night before last, where he was up constantly and fighting sleep like his life depended on it?

So. Tired.

Post Daycare Update.

Go The F*** To Sleep: Day 1

Tags

babies, conditioning, crib, sleep training

The first night went way better than I expected, and I can’t help but wonder if it was a fluke.

First of all, here’s my strategy:

I’ve decided to concentrate on getting him to fall asleep in the crib. I want to build up the classical conditioning so that he believes that the crib is a place where he CAN fall asleep.

Everything else, like night weaning, can wait. One battle at a time. This part is more like the No Cry method, which moves in stages, but slightly more extreme, because I’m skipping ahead a bit.

Like my friend recommended, though, I have decided be consistent and determined about it, even if I had to pick him up and put him back down a zillion times.

So after his normal bedtime routine, I started to nurse him down on the bed as per usual. Now, normally, as he begins to doze off, he begins alternately falling off the breast and then frantically latching back on as he wavers between wanting to sleep and wanting to stay awake.

This time, the first time he pulled himself off, I picked him up and carried him to the nursery. He decided that he DID want to keep nursing, so I sat in the rocker and nursed him for another couple of minutes. Again, his eyes drooped, and he pulled off. Then he stiffened, arched his back and began the struggling fussing that so often characterizes a difficult night. Instead of trying to cuddle and soothe him, I dumped him in the crib.

As I could have predicted (because we have tried this in the past when he starts fighting us like that) his fusses switched to high pitched screams of rage. But I started to pat him rhythmically and sing Old MacDonald to him, and he stopped crying and focused on me.

He was asleep by the 15th animal or so.

It was like a miracle.

He stayed asleep for an hour and a half, and when he woke up I give him a quick nurse and he dropped back to sleep before I could get him back in the crib.

He stayed asleep for another hour and a half. The next time he woke, I gave him a quick nurse and I DID get him back in while he was dozy but awake. More patting, more Old MacDonald, and he was asleep.

Before I went to bed, my friend texted me, and reminded me again, “Consistency is key!”

So it’s unfortunate that I woke up at two in the morning with Babby snuggled up against me on my booba, and no memory of how he got there.

Perfect Husband doesn’t remember either. Sometimes he brings Babby to me in the night, but he has no memory of it if he did.

So that was a flaw.

But when Babby woke at 3:00 am, I moved back into the nursery and didn’t come out until he had fallen asleep in his crib. This time took a little longer – I had to take him back out several times and re-offer him the breast. When he finally did fall asleep, though, he did it just staring at the seahorse while it played, and I just sat nearby and tried not to fall asleep.

I tiptoed back to bed at 4:30, feeling accomplished.

He slept until his usual 6:30 – in his crib!

His morning nap was easy. Nursed, laid down in the crib, and then patted, his eyes rolled back in his head almost as soon as Old MacDonald began, and he slept for two and half hours.

I decided that I was clearly awesome.

I had forgotten that the afternoon nap is usually a much bigger struggle.

On the bright side, it was a typical struggle, with him biting me and then crying for the breast, and then biting and arching his back. When he does this he often gets rocked to sleep, but this time I just kept putting him in the crib. I sang round after round of Old MacDonald, but he just kept getting more rageful. The fact that someone outside was trimming hedges with chainsaw did NOT help.

He would rage, I would nurse him, he would bite me, I would dump him in the crib and sing, and he would rage again.

After an hour, PH, who was home sick with a migraine (poor man – not the ideal time for a screaming baby) spelled me off and the change startled Babby into drifting off.

…We’ll see how tonight goes…

1 Week Update

GO the F*** To Sleep. Srsly. I Really Mean It This Time. I DO!

Tags

babies, breastfeeding, naps, night weaning, nursing, sleep, sleep training

I baby sat my friend Pug Mama‘s toddler for the day a couple of weeks ago, and my account of his nap time has become PH’s new favourite story.

It goes like this:

Nap time had arrived, so I went up to the tot (who is around 20 months old) and said, “Are you ready for night-nights?”

[NotMaryP is out there reading this and mentally bashing me over the head with a rolled up newspaper for asking a baby such a question]

The baby, who had been roaring around with his toys and books for hours, cavalierly responded with “No!”

Realizing my mistake, I remedied it as best I could with a cheerful “Well, you’re going night-night anyway!”

“OH,” he said, his voice resonating a deep disgust.

So I picked him up and carried him to his crib.

“And then what happened?” PH will ask, even though he knows full well what happened. But he likes to hear it. Again and again.

The kid rolled onto his belly and went to sleep. 

“He just… went to sleep?” PH will repeat, his eyes wide with wonder. “Just like that?”

“He was almost asleep before I had even finished zipping him into his sleep-bag,” I tell him. PH then stares off into space dreamily, picturing this mysterious and magical moment, and savouring it.

“Wow.”

Last Sunday, I left Babby home with his Daddy and Pug Mama and I went for a leisurely dinner and a movie. I told her for the umpteenth time how impressed I was with her baby’s ability to switch to sleep mode so instantly and congratulated her on good fortune.

“Oh, don’t worry, he was JUST as bad as Babby when he was that age,” she said with conviction. “Maybe even worse. He was colicky. He screamed. Up constantly, all night long, nursing to sleep every time… He always ended up on the boob in my bed halfway through the night.”

“So what changed?” Had she done cry-it-out? It didn’t seem like her style, somehow.

“No, but when he was 11 months old, I knew I had to go back to work, and I knew I couldn’t keep waking up constantly all night long. So I took a couple of weeks and taught him to fall asleep on his own.”

She then described a process which was similar to the one in The No-Cry Sleep Solution – the one that I have started “phase one” of umpteen times, but have never progressed from.

The only difference was that, in the interest of time and sleep, she basically skipped right to step three (soothing the baby without the breast and putting him down to fall asleep in the crib.)

Her process was as follows:

“You soothe and rock and sing to him for a little while, then you lay him down in the crib and give him a minute there. He won’t sleep. He’ll cry. Pick him back up, soothe him, and put him back down and give him a minute. You’ll have to do this again, and again, and again. The first night i had to do it over 20 times before he fell asleep. I had to do it 20 times again the next time he woke up, and again the NEXT time he woke up. You DON’T GIVE IN.”

That made sense. Haven’t I told and told puppy raisers that rewarding bad behaviour ONCE guarantees that it’ll pop up again ten more times, even if they punish it all those other ten times?

“Anyway, after a few times I only had to do it 15 times before he slept, and then 10 times, and then five times. A week later he was only waking up once or twice in the night, and after two weeks, he was sleeping through most nights. And now he sleeps from 7 to 7. It was the best thing I ever did. Once he learned that he could fall asleep on his own, he was so much happier.”

The key thing, she kept reminding me, was determination. She was motivated by her return to work to stick to her guns.

Determination has always been our problem with Babby’s bad sleep habits [BAD dog trainer, BAD!]. Between you and me and the rest of the internet, part of me has always cherished those night-time nursings. I like snuggling with my baby in the wee sma’s of the morning. As an insomniac, I appreciate the flood of sleepy-hormones that comes with it.

As for PH, he just liked having an easy way to soothe his baby, because PH has never been able to handle the crying well. He even hates that Mythbusters episode where they take candy from babies, because he can’t stand to see the babies cry. That’s the main reason why our attempt to wean Babby off of night nursing lasted all of fifteen minutes.

However, my night time/early morning snuggles with Babby aren’t the sweet cuddly times that they used to be. Since he learned to crawl, I spend much of my time between 3 am and 6:30 am being kicked, climbed over, pinched, and sat-on. There’s a rail on the bed so Babby can’t fall off, but he uses it to pull himself to standing, and then he tries to walk on me while holding onto the rail for support.

Sleep? What is "Sleep"?

He tweaks my nipples. I have actual BRUISES on my boobas from his playful morning exuberance.

It’s not so cute.

All in all, Babby’s sleep is worse than ever. He has gone to sleep without booba increasingly often – largely out of necessity– but it’s always a big screamfest and we never forward to a repetition. 

When I got home late from that dinner and a movie out, Babby had woken up three times, and PH had been unable to get him back to sleep a third time. Babby had therefore been awake and fussing for over an hour and a half.

Obviously, it would have been a douche-nozzle thing to do if I had whisked in there and popped Babby on the breast. Might as well tell him “If you scream for an hour and a half, Mommy will finally reappear and give you what you want” and thus doom PH to hours of screaming every time I go out at night.

So we rocked and sang, rocked and sang until THREE IN THE MORNING when he finally passed out. Then Babby finally fell asleep for a good three and a half hours before waking up for the day.

We haven’t really been able to catch up on our sleep since. His squirminess is worse than ever. PH was jolted awake the other night by the sheer volume of my frustration as I took an upright Babby and flipped him prone for the bazillionth time and tried to nurse him to sleep.

Finally, at 5 am, PH took Babby from me (since Babby clearly had no interest in nursing and ergo, in sleeping) and carried him into the nursery. He returned exhausted but triumphant an hour later.

Babby had fallen asleep IN HIS CRIB while PH sang who knows how many rounds of Old MacDonald.

That same day, I got a job offer.

The job is working as a tech in a clinic down the road. The vet is into holistic and homeopathic stuff, so I’m a little leery, but he seemed nice and competant and I hope that I will like it there.

My anxiety is in full over-drive. The vet who hired me has been very vague about how many hours I am to work, and hasn’t given me any other job info. Then again, I’ve been just as vague back. He wants to know when I can start and I don’t know. I called the Daycare lady and apparently she’s frigging overseas until mid August, so I can’t even talk to her about getting Babby into her daycare until then. I have no idea how quickly she can take him, and no way of finding out for two more weeks.

This is a problem.

One thing is for sure – I can’t start work for at least two more weeks.

That gives me two weeks to get Babby falling asleep in his crib.

And maybe some day I’ll tell him that it’s time for nap-naps, and he’ll just say “Oh,” and GO THE F*** TO SLEEP.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW0A6L9kx4c&feature=related]

Day 1 Update

Installation of program “Babby Sleep” was not successful. (R)etry?

Tags

babies, bath time, bedtime routine, johnson's, no-cry sleep solution, research, sleep, sleep profile, sleep training, studies

I’m so tired. 

Babby’s sleeping patterns are so unpredictable that I always feel blindsided. When (as on Sunday night) he sleeps soundly in three hour bursts, and nighttime disruptions are minimal (fuss, nurse, conked out again in moments), I’m like “WHAT DID I DO RIGHT??” and when, as in last night, he refuses to stay asleep for more than half an hour to an hour at a time, I’m like “WHY????”

I can’t find rhyme or reason to it.

It isn’t how much solid food he has in a day, because before last night’s disturbed night he gobbled fish sticks and green beans. It isn’t how much milk he gets, because he was on the boob all night last night. It could be the amount of nap time in the day, because he had slept surprisingly well yesterday afternoon, but then he has had just as disrupted nights that we have blamed on overtiredness due to LACK of napping during the day.

It feels like a crap shoot.

If you’re wondering how my no-cry-sleep-solution training is going, the answer is: haltingly. 

Because the kid keeps getting colds.

Every time I start the pop-him-off-the-boob-before-he-falls-asleep program, I notice a difference within 24 hours. Longer, more sound sleeps. It works. Problem is, I never really manage to advance the program because then the crafty kid comes down with a cold and can’t sleep because he can’t breathe and I abandon any sleep training out of desperation. When it’s the sixth wakeup before midnight, you just don’t care anymore.

JUST GO TO SLEEP. HERE, HAVE A BOOBA. HAVE ALL THE BOOBA.

A week later when he’s breathing well and no longer sneezing snot bubbles onto my nipples, I have to start from scratch again.

Then I read this Science Daily report about an online program offered by Johnson & Johnson that dispenses helpful advice to parents about sleep. Now, I have a soft spot for Johnson’s because I appeared in a commercial for their shampoo when I was three, and I remember it well.

So I did the report. You know what they told me?

Pantley Pop Off In Place

Tags

babies, classical conditioning, no-cry sleep solution, sleep log, sleep routines, sleep training

Well, it’s time for another sleep log!

Snow suit + Seahorse = Success

I spent the first week just doing the same as I always do, nursing him to sleep, but playing the musical seahorse to help build a conditioned association.

Then, Saturday night, I started instituting the pry-him-off-the-breast-just-before-sleep trick known as the “Pantley Pop Off”. I did it as often as I could in the night, until my own drowsiness meant that I fell asleep before he did, usually around 3 or 4 in the morning. It meant that putting him down to bed took a lot longer – he’d wake up and root again and again, but each night I have eventually met with success. Like most things, it’s a battle of the wills, and I am determined not to be out-willed by someone with half my brain capacity.

Over the last few nights he has fallen asleep off of the breast at least for that first sleep of the night. Sometimes he would be popped off for the umpteenth time, crinkle his face to fuss, and then fall unconscious before a wail could escape (which looks really funny). A couple of times he simply lay there drowsily, full of milk, staring that the light on the seahorse or the pages of my book until his eyes closed for good.

I haven’t done it much at nap time. Pantley says naps are so important that I should save any sleep training for night time to start and only switch over to boobless naps once he has mastered the art of falling asleep boobless at night. In fact, she predicts that once he gets the hang of it he’ll start doing it on his own, and it’s true that a couple of times during his naps he has pulled off the breast and simply stared into space until his eyes closed. So I think it’s working. But it’s going to be a long haul, I know.

NAPS ARE AMAZING. His napping has gotten a lot more regular. I put him down in the Sleepy Snow Suit for all of his naps, and he actually sleeps for two hours or sometimes even longer at a time!  It’s unheard of. I love it.  My days now have periods of  previously unimaginable freedom. I now have a startling amount of time in which to collect garbage, put on a load of laundry, or even eat on my own time, instead of hurriedly while Babby fusses on his play mat.  I’m still adjusting. Accustomed to only periodic dozes of 20 minutes or less, I am still slow to commit myself to things like showering or dish washing which are could drown out his crying for me. However, I have done both and he has slept through them all!

You have to realize that until a couple of weeks ago, my entire day was spent playing with, holding, singing to, or nursing Babby, trying to keep him cheerful and desperately hoping he would fall asleep, only to have him twist off the breast and start to fuss, or fall asleep on me and wake up the moment I tried to put him down or sneak away. Things like showers, quiet meals, and washing dishes were things to fantasize about.

I don’t know whether he is simply getting better at this sleeping thing or whether the consistent use of the snow suit at nap time is making the difference.

Here’s the latest sample sleep log: Keep in mind, this is after only five days of “pop off” practices.