Operation: Sleep Schedule

Two nights ago, I finally got fed up enough with how we've been sleeping (or, not sleeping, as the case may be), and I decided it was time to enforce a sleep schedule. I don't know why I didn't do it sooner. Well, I do know why. When my son was smaller, I hated letting him "cry it out". He's so stubborn, he'd cry for two hours straight and still not be tired. However, two nights ago, I decided that it was time, even if it meant he'd need to cry it out. Around 10 pm when he was still very much awake, I put him in a fresh diaper and jammies, tucked him into his toddler bed (which is still in our bedroom), read him a story twice, and said goodnight. There were many tears and loud protestations and banging on doors from his side of things. He managed to get out of the room once, so I calmly walked him back in and put him back in his bed. I had the baby monitor on, so I could hear the whole thing. At one point, I had to hold the door closed, so he could get the idea that he was to stay in the room. I felt equal parts guilty for shutting him up like that and glad that I was finally doing something I should have done a long time ago. Amazingly enough, he quieted down after about 45 minutes. I came into the room later to find him asleep in our bed. Apparently, he'd climbed into it during his crying fit. I moved him to his own bed and went to sleep. He woke up and came over to our bed twice in the night, and both times, I walked him back to his own bed and explained that that was where he was to sleep from now on. He stayed there until about 9:30 in the morning! Yesterday night, with some help from my husband (who'd been gaming with friends the night before), I enforced the ten o'clock bedtime again. And, again, there was much crying and banging on doors. Actually, I think there was more, and it was much louder! However, he did manage to quiet down and go to sleep, again, in our bed. We moved him to his own, and although he woke up a couple of times last night, he never moved from his bed. Also, over the last few days, he's been taking pretty consistent naps. What a difference it's made in my little guy! He seems to be happier, and though he still has the cough from a lingering cold, it doesn't seem to be as bad as it was before. Since we've had such success, we did it again, this evening. He started showing signs of being sleepy at around 9:30, so I decided to start the routine a little earlier. I changed his diaper and clothes, helped him brush his teeth, tucked him into bed, and read him a story. From the first mention of "night-night time" from me, he started crying, but he went along with it. He even lay down in his bed, even though he was still pretty upset with me. He only listened to the story half-heartedly, and it when it was time for me to kiss him goodnight, the tears flowed again. I closed the door and stood in the hallway to make certain he'd stay in the room. I heard a lot of "Mommy, Daddy, Mommy, Daddy" over and over, but no banging on doors. I think he actually stayed in his bed this time! I guess B and I will find out when we go to bed in a little bit. We've had the monitor on, and he has awakened at least once crying and coughing, but it hasn't taken him long to settle himself back down. I feel the need to go and check on him, but I really want him to learn to fall asleep on his own and stay asleep through the night. I think it'll make a world of difference for all of us. I know it was a big mistake not to start him on a sleep schedule earlier in life, but hey, I'm not a perfect mommy, and it's never too late to learn from our mistakes! Hope you're all getting more sleep, too.
Best,
Amanda
P.S. B just came down to tell me that V's asleep in his own bed! He also told me that I may need to turn one of our bathroom lights on low, so V has a little light in the room when he goes to sleep. I guess I didn't realize how dark it gets in there with the door closed, because we always keep it open with a nightlight on in the hallway. Oops! Poor little guy. No wonder he hates "night-night time". Well, now I know.

Being The "Bad Mommy"

Do you ever have days when you hate being a parent? Actually, let me rephrase that. I don't hate being a parent. I dislike being the "bad" parent most of the time. You know, the one who's always saying, "No, you can't have another such and such (insert applicable foodstuff here) because we'll be eating dinner soon", "No, you can't play with the video game controller right now because we have to leave the store", and, the one that makes me the worst parent of all, "It's time for a nap". I had to use that last phrase today much to my 2-year-old son's chagrin. Because he's been "paci-less" since last week, getting him to sleep has been very difficult. At night, it's easier for him to realize it's time to sleep because it's dark outside and both Mommy and Daddy are in bed and ready to sleep, too. However, nap time occurs during the day when it's still light and nobody else but him is going to bed. He still desperately needs his afternoon nap, but he's been fighting it ever since he realized it was much more fun to be awake and playing. Today was the mother of all struggles. I think it lasted an hour. We watched some "Little Bear" in the family room, and when I noticed him acting tired around 2 o'clock, I told him it was time to take a nap. Then, we went up to our bedroom, and I put him on our queen-sized bed and laid down next to him to help him fall asleep. That's when the screaming and the kicking and the wiggling to get down ensued. I tried holding him and rocking him. I tried hugging him and rubbing his back. I tried singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". Nothing calmed him down. He sat up and screamed and begged in his toddler gibberish to get down from the bed. And each time, I laid him back down, which only resulted in more screaming and kicking. At one point, I wanted to cry myself. I've become so tired of the daily struggles at nap time. Before, popping paci into his mouth made him realize it was time to rest. Now that he doesn't have paci to help him fall asleep, we're back to square one in that learning process. I've been going crazy trying to find a way to help him. He has a little white stuffed rabbit that seems to be his new attachment, but even it didn't help today. An hour laying with him and listening to him scream finally resulted in him dropping into a heap onto my shoulder and finally falling asleep because he was exhausted. That just can't be healthy. We tried the "crying out" method with him when we tried to get him to sleep in his crib, and it never worked because he'd scream for two hours without stopping to breathe, it seemed. Now, it appears we're back to that at nap time, even with me in the room. And, every time it happens, I feel like the worst mommy in the world. I ask myself time and again why I can't get my son to sleep. It's one of the most natural things in the world to do, and yet, he just can't seem to do it. I'm always envious of other moms who say their children ALWAYS go to bed at seven or eight o'clock every night and ALWAYS go down for their nap at such and such time without a peep. What I wouldn't give for a little time to myself or with my husband every night! I think I could be a much better mommy during the day. Lately, it seems as though once he's napping, my son sleeps for two or three hours, so I get a little break from the chaos, but it's usually spent doing housework or something "productive". Maybe as he gets older and starts to understand more, things will get a little easier, and we'll see a little more improvement in his ability to fall asleep. I've already noticed he sleeps through the night without paci because he's not waking up to find it when it inevitably falls out. So, there is some good in me being the "bad mommy" and not buying a new paci to replace the lost ones. I just hope I remember that when nap time rolls around again...

Do 2-year-olds Dream Of Baby Sheep?

It's been a busy week to say the least. I can't remember much of Monday, except that B was on call. He had a few patients in labor that evening, so V and I went to the hospital to have dinner with him. Apparently, the hospital's cafeteria closes around 7:00 pm, and we got there after that, so dinner ended up being McDonald's that V and I grabbed and brought back for B. Luckily, B was able to come home to sleep that evening, and he didn't have a very busy morning. With B home and post call on Tuesday, we decided to grab lunch to go from a local deli and took it to a park. V wanted to play rather than eat, which was fine because the park's playground was just spectacular. On Tuesday evening, I carpooled with some of the moms in my play group to another mom's house for a great homemade Greek dinner. We all had such a lovely evening, since it was the first time that many of us were able to talk to each other without having to chase after little ones, too! I got home around 10:30 pm, only to find that V was still awake. So, we both ended up going to bed late that night. I spent yesterday in a flurry trying to get the house in order and dinner ready for our weekly board gaming group. B decided it was the perfect time for us to start hosting everyone at our house. We have enough chairs with our new kitchenette set now, and we were able to get everyone (including V and our friends' two sons) around our dining room table. I made two lasagnas, garlic bread, salad (from a bag), and chocolate caramel brownies. Everything turned out great, and I'm so glad I made two lasagnas, because I think most people had seconds. There's enough left over for dinner tonight, so I don't have to cook again! Yay! Once dinner was over, everyone else started setting a board game up in the dining room, and I tried to get V settled and asleep. However, he was so interested in everyone being at our house, especially the two other boys, and he wanted to play the game soooo much, I had a hard time trying to get him sleepy. In fact, after everyone left around 11:30 pm or so, V was still awake. And, he was still awake after midnight. We have a queen-sized air mattress set up on the floor of V's bedroom because I've been trying to help him transition into his new room. Most nights, he starts out in his own bed, and I either sleep in my bed or on the air mattress. He usually wakes up in the middle of the night and tries to discover where I may be sleeping. If I'm in my bed, I take him back to his room, and we sleep on the air mattress. If I'm on the air mattress, he joins me. Last night, he fell asleep at one point, and I tried to put him in his bed, only to have him sit up wide awake and start screaming! So, we both ended up on the air mattress. I'm really getting tired of our whole sleep situation. It would be different if V would sleep through the night, even with someone else in bed with him. However, he doesn't, and I always wake up at some point in the early morning hours, either because of him running to our bed, or because of him rolling around on the air mattress, kicking me, rolling practically on top of me, or pretty much pushing me to the edge. Ever since we started this transition thing, it's been stressful for me. I'm ready for him to sleep on his own, and he really needs to start doing it because I don't plan on having him in bed with us when he starts Kindergarten in a few years. Also, when the next baby decides to come along, I really hope we can get him/her to sleep in the crib, so we don't start the cycle all over again. I don't have anything against co-sleeping. People do it all over the world, and it really helped when I was breastfeeding. However, now that V is bigger and stronger, and especially since he seems so restless while he sleeps, it's been a lot tougher for me to sleep as well. All week, it seems we've been getting up at 8:30 am or later. To me, that's really late, and I feel like our morning is half over by then. I think part of the problem is the fact that we really don't have a set bedtime routine. I pretty much rock V to sleep when he seems tired, and that's it. Maybe if we started something like a set bath time and story time before rocking, V's internal clock will set itself earlier and maybe he'll finally sleep on his own. I've been putting off a bedtime routine mostly because B's work schedule is so erratic, and I want him to be a part of the parenting stuff as much as possible. However, this may be another thing I'll have to start doing myself. I'm waiting for our insurance to kick in too, before talking to a pediatrician about V's sleep habits. I'm really more worried about the fact that he just doesn't sleep through the night, and I wonder if he has any allergies we could be missing that are causing him to wake up. Or, it could be new teeth coming in or his ears, which also should be looked at again soon. Really, it could be anything. I'm just hoping we discover the cause or come up with some kind of solution, so my baby can start getting some real sleep. And, so his momma can get some sleep, too!

No Sleeping Baby Pics, Today. Sigh...

I hoped V would stay in his bed last night, but unfortunately, it didn't happen. I woke up in the middle of the night to him crying in the hallway. When I finally made it out of bed, he had managed to creep down the stairs to the main level of our house, which is where the formal living room, dining room, and kitchen are located. The house was completely dark, and I don't know how he didn't run into anything, but I was able to chase him down and bring him back upstairs. He was pretty scared. I don't think he realized B and I were in our bedroom, and he must have been looking for us somewhere else in the house. I tried to rock him in his room, but it didn't work. I kept falling asleep in the glider, and he tried to fall asleep, but he was just too restless. He wriggled out of my arms at one point and ran down the hall to our bedroom. So, I gave up and put him in bed with B and I. Unfortunately, he was still kind of awake and all over the bed between us. I got up to use the restroom, and when I came back to my side of the bed, V had taken over my pillow. I'd had enough at that point and decided to just let him sleep there, while I went back down the hall and fell asleep in the guest room. B woke me up after his alarm went off to let me know he was going to get ready for work, so I moved V over to B's side of the bed and hopped in myself. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew it was around 8:00 am, and I was pretty much awake. So, that was our night. I guess I was a little too hasty in my hopes that V would transition well into his room. It's going to take a lot longer than I expected, and I think we're going to have to put a baby gate up in his doorway, so he doesn't end up roaming the house in the middle of the night. We'll try again tonight and see what happens.
Hope you're all getting better sleep than us!
Amanda

Transitions, transitions...

It's 10:30 pm, and I just put our son to bed. His OWN bed. In his OWN room. That's right. On Tuesday night, my husband decided it was time for V to start sleeping on his own. It's been a long time coming. We've been co-sleeping since V was born, mostly out of necessity. B really needed his sleep during residency, and the easiest way to get it was to allow V to sleep in our bed with us, instead of putting him in his crib and letting him cry it out. It's not that we didn't try transitioning him to his crib. It's just that our son is one of the most determined babies I've ever met. There were a couple of times during B's residency when I tried to get V to sleep in his crib while B was on-call at the hospital. The one time V finally did fall asleep, he had cried for about 2 hours straight, and even though I went and checked on him every few minutes or so, there was no way to console him except to take him out of the crib. Once he was asleep, I decided to go to bed myself. That meant I had to walk by his crib over squeaky floorboards. He didn't stay asleep for very long, and I gave up and let him go to bed with me. I didn't try transitioning him after that, even though V kept getting bigger, and our queen-sized mattress seemed to be getting smaller with the three of us piling in together every night. Personally, I didn't mind co-sleeping, especially when I was nursing V. It made it very easy for me to sit up and breast feed him while we were in bed, and then, put him right back down next to me and go back to sleep. However, after he was weaned around 14 months, co-sleeping started to seem less desirable, mostly because V is a very light and restless sleeper, and he kicks, too! Honestly, I don't think I've slept through the night since before I got pregnant. That's almost three years of waking up at least once every single night for some reason or another. My husband and I have been ready for a long time to have our bed and our room back to ourselves, but we just couldn't find a way to do it without a lot of tears on both sides. Then, we moved to our new house. V still co-slept with us for a while, until our good friends loaned us their toddler bed. To make the transition easy on our son, we put the little bed next to my side of our queen bed. I started putting V in the toddler bed during his naps, and when that seemed to work almost immediately, we decided to try putting him in it at bed time. It wasn't a complete success. There were still nights when he would wake up wondering where he was and crying for us. He got to the point in the early mornings sometimes when he would just wake up and climb into bed with me. Then, B started practicing medicine at the beginning of August. We knew that he would be on-call at least once a week for his office, and though sometimes he would spend most of his call in the hospital, we also knew that there would be times when he would be home and get calls in the middle of the night, which would not only wake him up, but V and I as well. This past Tuesday happened to be one of those nights. B had planned on moving V's toddler bed into his room last weekend, but we were really too sick and lacked the energy to do anything about it. On Tuesday, when B got home, he decided that would be a good time for transitioning V. He knew he might not get very many calls, but he couldn't be absolutely sure he wouldn't get any at all. So down the hall the toddler bed went. V actually seemed a little excited about it because he already loves playing in his own room. It was like another toy for him! After dinner, he went into his room and climbed under his comforter and laid there while I read him a book. He was only playing, but it seemed like a good omen to me. When he finally fell asleep that evening, I went ahead and put him to bed in his room for the first time. B and I went to bed around 11:00. Then, about ten minutes later, B got a call from a patient who was in labor. Since it was already so late, he decided he would just sleep at the hospital after the delivery instead of coming back home and possibly getting called to work again. I fell asleep soon after he left. Then, around 2:30 am, I heard V crying. I went into his room and noticed his eyes were closed, but his pacifier had fallen out. Once paci was back in his mouth, he seemed to be totally asleep. I didn't hear anything from his room again until about 5:30 am. At that point, he was crying and sitting up in his bed, so I brought him to bed with me for the next couple of hours. I felt on the whole that his first night in his room went fairly well, and I hoped that it would only continue to get better for all of us. Unfortunately, that didn't happen last night. He was only in bed a couple of hours before I heard him crying. When I went to check on him, I found him on the floor in the hallway outside of his room. Rocking him and holding him just didn't work, and he ended up in bed with us for the rest of the night. None of us got any good sleep. V tossed and turned and kicked, and when B's alarm went off this morning, V woke up and just wouldn't go back to sleep, which was what I wanted to do! The rest of the day, we were both kind of tired, but V managed to have a good nap in his own bed this afternoon. I'm hoping tonight he decides his room is an okay place to sleep, and B and I can finally have our bed to ourselves! It may not happen, but hey, it never hurts to hope. And, now, to bed. If V's still in his room asleep tomorrow morning, I'll take a picture for proof and post it in celebration of another successful transition in his young life.
Best to you all, and good night!
Amanda

Getting To Know You, Part 2

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that we finally met our next door neighbors this past weekend, too. They're a young couple with two young sons, a six-year-old and a three-year-old. We had just returned from the farmer's market when we saw them in their driveway. Apparently, the couple's parents were going to take the boys on a camping trip for the weekend. While we introduced ourselves and talked a bit, V had no problems getting acquainted with the youngest of the two boys. I'm thrilled he's become so sociable and actually initiates play with other kids. I was such a shy kid growing up, and I was afraid he might inherit that from me. I guess I've been so outgoing in the past few years, it's rubbed off on our son. Anyway, I'm really happy our neighbors have young kids and are about our age, too. I foresee us having lots of spontaneous get-togethers and play dates in the near future. Maybe B and I can turn them on to playing board games, if they don't play already. That would just be an added bonus! Either way, it'll be nice to have possible babysitters living so close! ;) Well, it's late, and I better get to bed soon. We've been trying to transition V to a toddler bed, which is located next to our bed right now. He's okay when I put him to bed after he falls asleep, but he's been waking up at 2 am wanting to get back in bed with us almost every single night. Some nights, he doesn't even make it into his toddler bed. Last night, he woke up and took forever to get comfortable again. I ended up taking him to our guest room with me, so B could get the sleep he needs for his new job. I hope we don't end up in the guest room again, tonight. Does anyone have any recommendations on getting a 2-year-old to sleep through the night? We could use any advice we can get, right now! ;)
Best to you all,
Amanda