Sleep issues, babe number three- Let the games begin!

Our youngest son, Zeke, is almost a year old.  Time flies!  He has been sleeping well (my definition of well is napping at about the same time daily, two naps and sleeping eleven hours with wakeups for nursing).  I think some moms may not agree with my definition of "sleeping well" including nighttime wake-ups, but I've decided my babies are genuinely hungry and need that connection at least once a night.  Zeke wakes two to four times a night but goes right back to sleep usually-- not fun but something I've decided I can tolerate.

What I don't do well with is when the tots won't go to sleep without much protest.  Zeke has been nursing peacefully to sleep and then taking a good nap twice a day for quite awhile now.  It's been great.  I knew it couldn't last forever, but I've been in a if-it's-not-broke-don't-fix-it mode.  And it's a lovely peaceful time to sit and nurse him peacefully off to sleep.  But that has all changed lately.

The same thing happened with Juanita.  I recall that at the minute she learned to walk, instead of drifting off after her bottle, she would sit up and try to climb off of my lap.  What?!  Yesterday, with Zeke on my lap nursing, I was the one who fell asleep in the chair.  Then I was awakened by a slap to the face from him.  He then arched his back and tried to roll to the floor to carry on his day!  My peaceful baby snuggle moments are dwindling away.

I've put him in his crib in this state a few times and he's cried for just a couple minutes.  But now the protest time is increasing; he's crying harder and for longer.  I think he's genuinely scared.  I mean, it's all new to be left in a dark room awake and alone.  What baby expects that all is well when that happens?

So, I was happy to come upon this post about Grace's sleep.  Grace naps so.well.now.  The girl ASKS to go to bed when she is tired (usually about 11 am or so).  She smiles the whole way to bed and relief spreads across her face as she settles into bed.  She wakes up with new energy for the rest of her adventurous two-year-old day.  I'm so thankful for this and happy for her.  I can only hope for this for Zeke too.  Well, hope and plan.

So, I'm going to start waking him at the same time daily (trying to stretch him to six am).  He's a classic overly tired baby...wakiing too early (5:30), easily cranky, napping too late, bedtime too late.  I hope that I can turn this around by creating a bit of a new bedtime routine, some sleep cues (a lovey perhaps?, some music?), some play time in crib during non-sleep time, and most importantly, putting him down before he's overly tired.  Exhaustion will not be the sleep aid from now on.  It's so true that it causes more crying than going to bed on time!

So I'm going to follow the suggestions in the post I wrote about Grace's sleep.  I'm not sure what will happen.  Did I luck out with Grace?  Will Zeke protest more?

As with Grace, I will not have him crying it out alone in his room.  I'll follow the same rule of thumb I did with Grace, up to ten minutes of whimpering protests is ok- but frightened cries, or longer cries and I'll jump in and get him and we'll carry on with our day until the next nap.  We'll see how it goes!  Oh, and I will PRAY!!!  God has designed how babies sleep and He has the most wisdom on this subject!  I felt He answered my prayer with Grace, and believe He'll give me wisdom with Jonah. too. :)

I'll keep ya posted!

What has helped Addie nap better, courtesy of Dr Weissbluth

So here is a brief summary of where we were and what got us to where we are. 

Addie did not nap.  She "passed out" for 25 minutes at a time, about twice a day.  So we read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and did the following steps based on instructions from the book....

• Wake up Addie at 7 am.  This helps establish some regularity and gets her close to a schedule that works with baby's natural nap times, 9 am and 1 pm.
• Make the room bright and full of sunshine.  This helps baby set this on her internal clock as "awake" time, thus helping her realize it's different than sleep time.
• Put her down for first nap within one to two hours of wake up time.  In the beginning, she seemed to need to go down within an hour of getting up.  I suspect this was because of being overly tired and needing to catch up on rest.  Now it's closer to two hours.  
• When deciding when to put her down I watched her sleep signals more than the clock.  The clock gave me a rough idea of when she might be tired, but then I watched her.  She gets quiet, moves less, and sucks her fingers when she begins to get tired.  The next stage includes being agitated, especially when I walk away from her.  She also may start to get noisy again, in a sort of yelling way.  If I miss all these signs she gets sort of frantic, moving about a lot and getting a nervous but smiley laugh / cry thing going.  Poor baby.
• Put her down for her second nap within two to three hours of waking for the first one.  This is almost always within two hours for her.  
• Before all naps I nurse her and swaddle her legs and put a light sleep sack on over her.  I do the sack partly for warmth but also in case she gets herself unswaddled-- then the swaddle is caught in the sack and not out for her to wrap around her head.  
• Put her down for an optional third nap around 4:30 - 5:30-ish.  This carries her through until bedtime at 8pm (or so I think-- we are still trying to sort this out).
• The entire while I  keep a sleep log to help figure out what works for her.  

The thing that's missing from the Weissbluth method is crying.  I will let her fuss for up to 10 minutes.  Dr Weissbluth would say to let her cry for up to an hour at nap time and then indefinitely at bedtime.  I've found that when we got her to bed before she was overtired though, there isn't much crying.  So when she just doesn't go down I let her cry for ten minutes.  If she's not asleep after that we just get her up and keep her awake until the next nap time, or a little earlier.  Those are anxious times for me because I worry we'll get back into that overtired, no nap cycle.  So far, missing one nap hasn't been a permanent problem.  She always seems to start new with the next nap and the rest of the day goes well.


To summarize, the key for us was to, especially at first, get her in bed at the beginning of her sleepy signals.  That seemed to result in the least amount of protest.  It was counter-intuitive to me because I used to think the more tired she was the easier she would go down-- but it's quite the opposite, just like Dr Weissbluth explains.

God Grant Me the Serenity...

..to accept the things I can't change.  Courage, to change the things I can.  And the wisdom to know the difference.

That's been my prayer for awhile, and more so lately with this sleep stuff.  We've hit a bit of a crossroads. 

Naps are great (knock on wood!).  Addie has two naps-- one at about 8:30, the second at about 12:30.  Both last an hour and forty-five minutes to sometimes over two hours.   A third nap seems to be needed and when that happens she naps about 45 minutes to an hour. So, she naps about a total of at least four hours a day.  The nap pattern coincides with what Dr Weissbluth said about some kids needing more naps than others, a mix of short and long naps. 

Bedtimes have been hard to figure out.  We tried skipping that third nap and putting her to bed when our toddler goes down, about six pm.  But no matter what naps have happened that day, no matter what combo or length of naps, she wakes every forty minutes or so if we put her to bed before 8pm.  My mom says this is because  6-10 pm is considered babies "social hour".  They just seem to be programmed to want to stay awake.  There seems to be some truth to that in our case.  So right now we are focusing on making sure that third nap happens, even if it's as late as 5:30.  Then when she wakes we are bringing her downstairs until between 8 and 8:30pm.  Every time she goes down around that time she stays asleep at least 2-3 hours.  I even crawled into bed without waking her at all last night. 

The glitch is that between 7 and 8 last night she seemed really tired.  Also, at 4 am she did her usual wake up and want to stay awake talking and such.  Fortunately I just had her nurse some more and then she fell off back to sleep. 

The crossroads I'm at is having tried all that I can to make nighttime rest a bit more, uh, restful.  I really don't want to let her cry.  I tried it for a bit and it made me sick to do it.  That doesn't mean I wouldn't ever consider it.  I would be willing to try it briefly if we really needed to in order to help her establish a pattern that gives her the rest that she needs. 

So that's the question.  Is she getting enough nighttime sleep?  I'm going to continue on for a week or so and make that third nap a regular occurrence, and keep her up until 8pm after that.  We'll see how it goes.  I'm also going to ask the pediatrician today what she thinks.  I'm also going to continue to go to bed early because when I'm unhappy from nightwakings I generally, albeit inadvertantly, spread my less-than-joyful mood to the rest of the family. 

So that's where we are.  I'm going to write a quick summary today in a separate post about what HAS worked from the HSHHC book.  Mostly because of an online poster who is experiencing a similiar problem with sleep deprivation in her eight month old.  I hope sharing this helps a bit!

She's come undone

Okay, maybe I'm being a bit dramatic, but that's how it feels.  I haven't been following this Weissbluth Method exactly.  I've been doing my best to get Addie down before she's overly tired and just hoping I don't have to let her cry at all.  Well, there's been more tears since Friday.  Last night I knew she had to be tired so put her to bed early-- no luck.  This girl doesn't want to go to bed before 8pm.  She took a one hour nap and awoke at 7:30.  The next two hours were a mix of letting her cry, me crying and considering giving the children up for adoption because I feel like a terrible mom, and comforting her.  Finally around 9:30 I went to bed held her and she was asleep in thirty seconds.  She would only stay alseep if I stayed with her.  I was so exhausted that I went to sleep too.  The rest of the night was fairly typical, but with a few more wakeup than usual.

Today the morning started at 6 am.  I put her down at the very first sign of fatigue-- knowing that she hadn't had much sleep last night and she had gotten up on the early side of normal.  She didn't want to go to sleep.  She cried.  And cried.  I finally got her up, played with her and then watched her yawn and get glossy eyed and start to get fussy.  I put her down at 8:30 and she cried for a couple minutes and then took her overtired typical 25 minute not-really-a-nap nap.  Ugh. 

Right now I'm following the book and allowing her to cry for another 30 minutes.  I'm terrible, right?

I feel like I've been on the fence.  Trying to do the program without really doing the program.  But what if it doesn't work, I let her cry and then she starts to hate her bed, or sleeps worse?  When we started, it really couldn't get worse as far as nap times go.

Now I feel I know when she is tired.  There's no doubt.  I'm putting her down with a know she's tired.  I know this because I've written down every nap for a week.  So I also know when she's overtired.  The problem is, when she's overtired, what am I willing to do about it?

Right now, my brain is shot.  I'm tired.  I'm rather depressed.  And I feel like a horrible mom in general. 

I may just go with the Weissbluth method and try it full force.  For naps, at least.  I'm going to comfort at bedtime because nighttime sleep is regulated by a different part of the brain than nap sleep.  So one won't mess up the other.  I have the luxury of comforting her more at night.  Once Jeff returns to work and it's me with a toddler and baby I don't have that luxury.  Even if I did, it didn't work to keep her asleep.  It only got her to sleep.

I can't go back to having her nap 40 minutes a day.  It's not healthy.  I know at least that for sure.

I'm doubting everything else.  But I know that for sure.

Timing the naps perfectly

Yesterday was perfect.  I felt it was a bit of, again, a miracle.  Addie went down for her 1st nap within an hour of getting up at 6am.  She slept an hour and then needed to go back down within an hour.  This meant that both of her two naps were over by 10:45 am.  We wrote off that first nap as her basically just going back to bed since she had had a rather rough night because I had put her to bed overtired.  I had nursed her to sleep but she woke hourly due to being in that overtired state.  The blessing in all of this was that her second nap (technically her third) could happen at a more normal time-- about 1 pm. 

She took the 1pm nap and then also a one hour nap at 4:30.  This 4:30 nap was needed.  I get the feeling that she will fall into the 16% of six month olds that need this late afternoon shut eye. 

She was playing happily until bedtime.  I tried to put her down at 7:45 but she cried.  So I brought her down because I figured the cry was more about the bedtime being too early rather than too late.  Then I took her up at 8:15 and laid down with her.  She nursed and then drifted off to sleep.  And boy did she sleep!

She woke at 10:45 and I crawled into bed with her for the night.  Then she only nursed one more time, I think, all night until she woke at about 6:30 am.  Perfect!

It all went fabulously.  I'm convinced that getting her to bed BEFORE she's too tired is the absolute key to avoiding crying.

That being said...today sucks so far.  Today I thought I would try to stretch her morning wakeful period a little longer-- in hopes of getting it closer to two hours.  She was sucking her fingers but still a bit interested in her surroundings.  Also, she hadn't made any fussy sounds.  So after an hour and a half of being up I bundled her up and took her up.   She cried after a couple minutes so I headed back up and nursed her to be sure she was full.  I saw a big yawn and glossy eyes.  She's tired, right?  I laid her back down and she is currently upstairs crying (I'm crying too, in the basement). 

I'm turning it around in my head.  I'm confused.  Did I put her down too early?  That just can't be, right?  She yawned.  That's the beginning of the really sleepy stage.  She had been sucking her fingers for at least a half an hour.  I just don't know.  If I had to guess, I would say, based on how long she has stayed up after waking the past four days that she is tired.  The only glitch is that last night was the best night's sleep she's had in awhile.  But then again, she went to sleep at 8:30 and woke at 6:30am.  So, really, I'm pretty sure I kept her up too long.  I was in the middle of cooking my husband's birthday breakfast and paid as much attention toher every move as I could while not burning his food (which I still did, by the way). 

So, the inevitable has happened.  The tears.  I knew in the back of my head that something would eventually interfere with getting Addie down before she was overtired.  And, to avoid wrecking her entire schedule and having an overly tired baby, I would need to let her be and let her cry.  I knew it.  And so it is.

So it's my mess up.  And she's paying for it.  Almost half an hour of crying so far.  I'm not sure I can or should keep going.  I'm going to go the full hour.  Because I really trust Dr Marc.  It seems strange to trust a stranger that wrote a book, I know.  But I also know that my baby who napped 25-40 minutes a day now naps 3-4 hours a day and had her first good sleep in ages last night.  And I know that if I go up now I'm going to mess up the week of getting this girl on a schedule.  And by mess up, I mean FURTHER mess up, as my first mistake was having her get overtired.

This is all live and learn.  I'm going to try the full hour cry that Dr Marc suggests.  I may regret it and never do it again.  I may never have to do it again.  The handful of trusted friends who let their babies cry said it happened maybe a day or two.  Ugh.  I feel literally physically sick at that thought!  I need to stop thinking about that.  I can survive this one hour.  Addie can survive it.  I'm not sure what the rest of the day holds though. 

I know this can be done without tears.  At least for one day.  If this cry doesn't correct the schedule that we worked so hard to get to then I will have to go back to square one.  And try it again.  With no more tears perhaps.

I gotta go pray.

Trying for That Third Nap (or early bedtime)

The first half of the day has been great lately.  Addie takes two naps but is awake by 1pm.  This is ideally the time that the second nap should be beginning-- not ending.  I suspect it's because of the nights not going so peacefully.  So we are on a new vicious cycle perhaps of a restful morning followed by an overtired evening followed by night wakeups that have nothing to do with hunger. 

At night we cosleep because it makes breastfeeding easier and I'm much more rested.  (We follow all the safety guidelines which make it safer than crib sleep, which is another bonus).  Nights aren't so much the problem as are evenings.  At night she rolls over toward me and we both fall back asleep as she nurses.  When she's done she rolls back over and I fall asleep on my back.  But during the early evening it takes a lot of rocking, patting and holding to get her to sleep.  Sometimes holds her for hours to get her through that wakefulness.  She always wakes crying and agitated.  Not hungry, just mad.  We used to think it was gas but her digestive system has matured enough that we now know that's not the cause.  Also, the first night of the new nap schedule, when she had that third nap, she went to bed happily and stayed alseep until she was hungry.  So we know it needs to change.

I will post tomorrow as to how things go. 

We are also trying to re-establish an afternoon nap for our toddler who has been having a restful video time since she gave up her afternoon nap.  We also moved her bedtime up which helped a lot but I suspect she could use actual sleep in the afternoon and want to try to give more of a chance to have that.  That will be Jeff's job.  Good luck, honey!

Sleep Sweet Sleep

Note:  This is a looonngggg post, mostly written for other moms who may want to hear how we have helped a non-napping baby make a big change, by the Grace of God.  I'm going to make some shorter follow-up posts as things progress, but here's the background....

We hit a crisis state last week in regard to Addie's sleep-- or should I say, lack of sleep.  Her naps had diminished from bad to worse with her sleeping about 40 minutes a day.  Her naps have never been good, but this is really, really bad.  I could get her to sleep but she never napped more than 25 minutes.  I could bake a cake by her nap time it was was so exact.  I tried stroller naps and car naps.  Taking an hour long detour to grocery store located 7 miles away was becoming ridiculous, and was no longer working.  Near the end of last week I was literally on my face on the floor begging God for help.  I felt lost.  None of my many books helped.

Then I remembered a book that I had considered and dismissed a few weeks early.  It's called "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr Marc Weissbluth.  I had read that it had great ideas and that although it advocated letting kids "cry it out", it had lots of solutions to try before getting to that point.  I read the reviews and was horrified by the description of the cry it out method he suggests, horrifically named "extinction".  I quickly removed the book from my library list.  But after weeks with no improvement, and this book title coming to mind again after my prayer, I decided I had to give it a shot.  Boy, am I glad I did! 


My daughter who formerly slept 40 minutes a day now naps for a total of 3-4 hours!  That sentence that I just wrote still leaves me in awe.  I did not think it was possible.  And, so far, we have accomplished this with zero tears.  How?

Well, Dr Marc is really big on getting kids to nap before they are overly tired.  He wants them in bed before that "second wind" kicks in.  It's that second wind that makes bedtime dramatic and tear-filled.  I was stunned to read that if my six month old gets up at 7 am she should be in bed no later than 9am.  Maybe even 8 am depending on her temperament.  So I committed to Addie's naps being my first priority and we began with what Dr Marc considers the most important nap of the day, the 9 am one.  Addie was back in bed within an hour or so of getting up.  And she went to bed smiling, sucking her fingers happily (a new development) and snuggling her baptism gift, a sheep lovey.  And she slept.  And slept.  And slept.  Almost two hours the first day.  Jeff and I looked at each other in disbelieft.  It had been at least three months since she had napped so long!  Then came the second nap. I was careful not to miss the sleepy window and got her to bed by noon...for the second nap!  This really was strange to me as I thought that kids' second naps were afternoon naps, as in "after" noon.  Dr Marc says this second one starts between noon and three, depending on the baby.  Addie slept again.  For two more hours.  I was speechless.

Later that day she fell asleep in the car for an hour.  This was a LOT of sleep for her!  Dr Marc had said that when you start this program  your baby may seem more tired than she had because the adrenaline is gone and she's experiencing the fatigue that has been hidden by the constant state of having a "second wind".  I knew he was right. By day three though, the fatigue lifted.

My worse fear with the lack of sleep was that it was going to slow her development.  By day three of this new schedule she had rolled over for the first time!  What a confirmation that we are on the right track!

That first day she also went to bed happily at 8pm.  Jeff and I didn't quite know what to do with ourselves.  We had been holding her to help her through her early night wakeups for the past six months.  We didn't know the cause of the wakeups but now we realized it was that adrenaline pumping through her overtired system.  That night we looked at each other several times, smiled and said "What do we do now?"  (The answer was, watch "Masterchef" :).

The road hasn't been without bumps.  That late afternoon third nap, which 16% of babies her age need, hasn't happened peacefully since day one.  So I've skipped it, thinking she's not in the 16%.  But the past two nights bedtime has not been peaceful and she's been waking hourly until midnight.  Now I know that it's because she needs that third nap, or a very early bed time (as in, 5pm).

So today I may have to use the technique that I was thankful to have avoided-- letting her cry.  Dr Marc says to let her cry for up to an hour when attempting a nap.  I'm not sure I can do this.  I experimented a bit with it last night at midnight when she was wide awake.  I had to walk away because I had been attempting naps or rocking her down since 3:30 pm.  I came downstairs and she yelled in protest for fifteen minutes until a real cry started.  I went in and rocked her.  She was peacefully asleep within minutes.  Faster and more peaceful than I had ever seen her drift off, oddly.  Then she slept for six hours.  Another first.

When Izzy was born I vowed I would never let a baby cry to sleep.  I read tons of attachment parenting books that said to avoid it and gave alternatives.  These alternatives were fairly time-consuming but it was time that I had.  Looking back, I don't think Izzy got enough sleep though, even with the rocking, etc.  And now with two, I don't have the ability to rock a baby down for half an hour in a quiet room-- there are no quiet rooms with a toddler on the loose!

So I'm at a crossroads where I simply have to choose a little crying over a baby who is quite literally sleep-deprived, which she was.  I mean that in the most clinical sense.  My baby was literally not getting enough sleep to function as she needed to.  This breaks my heart.  And it breaks my heart that perhaps Izzy hasn't gotten enough over the past couple years.  She got more than Addie.  But I'm not sure it was enough. 

Did I mention that Dr Marc also discusses toddler naps?  :)

Next up....what we are trying today to try to get that third nap to happen or at least not have her overtired by bedtime.  Also, our attempt at re-establishing a nap for our toddler.  Prayers welcome and appreciated :)