We have always called Abbey a “good sleeper”. Meaning that she has always gone to sleep with relatively little fuss from the time she was about 6 months old…except for on those awful nights when she was teething (especially those damned molars!) … and some other select nights that I don’t want to revisit because it makes me back ache just thinking about all the rocking and singing and dancing I did to get her to go down. We have always had a very strict bedtime routine and have always either rocked or nursed Abbey at bedtime. But at any rate, Abbey has never been a baby who doesn’t like to go to sleep.
Well, never say “never”. For the past five nights, Jed and I have been driving her in a few mile loop around our area in order to get her to go to sleep. She has been refusing to settle down and go to bed, no matter what I try…one night it was 1:00 AM before we got her in bed and settled down ourselves… … … it’s been rough.
She hated her crib, and we had been thinking for a while about transitioning her to a big girl bed…so we set up my old twin trundle bed (thanks, mom and dad) in her room, with a soft bed rail that folds down so I can nurse her/lay with her and then pop it up to keep her from rolling out. She loves it! But did that make her love going to bed? … … … nope.
Some friends and family suggested that we move her bedtime earlier, and that we make sure her routine doesn’t rev her up instead of settle her down. She used to go to bed at 8:00. Dinner at 6:30, bath at 7:30, Jammies, nursing, and lay down for bed by 8:00. We tried moving this earlier, aiming at bed at 7:00, but we couldn’t make it to bathtime by 6:30…I have been so used to having dinner ready at 6:30, not any earlier….and when your whole day is jam packed scheduled, it’s hard to backtrack everything… … … I think I may just have to wake up 30 minutes earlier to get bedtime to line up right!
With Abbey not going to sleep like normal, my routine has been thrown all to hell. Abbey’s bedtime is my signal to start sewing, blogging, and facebooking…then watching some TV and heading to bed. When Jed’s home, I include some cuddle time in there somewhere….but with Abbey not going to sleep, it’s ALL gone…just erased from my day. As soon as I get her in from the car and into her bed without her screaming and standing up, I breathe a sigh of relief and head straight to bed.
This leaves me exhausted in the morning, and moody too. All that activity after Abbey goes to bed….that’s my stress relief! And it’s functional, too. Without Abbey sleeping, sewing projects have piled up….blog ideas are put on hold…my creative juices are all stopped up…sometimes I just feel like screaming when I don’t get time to myself to sew and write…
and then Abbey feels my stress and it’s a vicious circle. Add into that circle of stress the fact that Jed is leaving for Yorktown, VA for 6 months this coming Saturday…and you can see why it’s causing such a problem.
But for our family, it’s more of a problem than for most. You see, in our family, we don’t sleep train or CIO. In our family, phrases like “The longer you go on nursing him to sleep, the more painful teaching him to do it himself will be” and “she must learn to put herself to sleep – don’t do anything that will reward the baby for calling out for you” just don’t cut it. When I found these phrases in reputable and respected parenting books, I was so frustrated. None of the books I had on my shelf besides my breastfeeding ones advocated a gentle sleep solution. All of them advocated “controlled crying” and “training” your baby to sleep. My baby girl is NOT a dog. Her bed is NOT a kennel. She is a little person, and she needs to feel safe and loved. She needs to learn trust, not just to give in. Maybe these techniques would work for a family that has decided to use sleep training and whose baby is used to crying at night…but they’re just not applicable in this house.
So, I requested Elizabeth Pantley’s No Cry Sleep Solution and No Cry Nap Solution from our library, and will be picking them up tomorrow. Tonight, I worked a miracle, and Abbey (after some refusal) DID go to sleep without needing a car ride. I made sure that Abbey got a good nap at noon (about 1 1/2 hours long), got dinner ready at 6:00, didn’t let her play too long in the bath (as to not stimulate her too much), and when she protested staying in her bed and pounded on her bedroom door, I told her as Kamie (my SIL) suggested, “Abbey, mommy loves you, but it’s sleepy-time and it’s time for sleep” over and over again.
I started to think that she would never settle down, and at one point, I did leave the room to try and see if she would calm down by playing with her books and toys…and then came back, after a few minutes, after talking with Jed about the game plan (that if I couldn’t get her to sleep by an hour after I started trying, we would take her for a drive) … repeating the “sleepy-time” mantra. There was a moment that I got really frustrated, and thought I’d just have to put her in the car, but I stayed calm, and eventually it paid off.
When I came back, I meant to lead her to her bed without picking her up, but helping her out of her tantrum with a hug evolved quickly into holding her when Abbey wrapped her little legs around me like a monkey. Never-the-less, I got her into bed, repeated again that it was sleepy time, and that mommy loves her. I patted her back to soothe her, and I put the bed rail up to keep her from getting out of bed. She asked for milk again, so I nursed her again, and after she was done, she lay down on her belly and kicked the wooden footboard rhythmically, trying to stay awake. After a few minutes of shushing and patting her back, though, she went out like a little light, and I could hardly believe it. I told her good night and when I knew by her deep breathing that she was well asleep, I snuck out of her room as quietly as possible. Sweet baby girl…she’s asleep backwards and caddy corner on her bed, but at least she’s out. I guess I’ll try to repeat the day’s events tomorrow … no sleeping after 3 pm… dinner no later than 6… not too long of a bath… in bed by 7:00 and patting her back and the sleepy-time mantra, even if she does refuse. I won’t get frustrated if she refuses to go to bed at first, because now I know that it IS possible for her to go to sleep.
I think it is important for Abbey to learn to go to sleep on her own, but I don’t agree with the way that a lot of parents choose to go about “sleep training” especially from infancy. I think that parents should learn to be patient and wait till their babies are starting to understand concepts so that you can teach them what “sleep” means before you can expect them to go to sleep on their own. I think it’s perfectly fine for me to pat Abbey on the back and sit with her until she sleeps. I think it’s fine to not let her cry. Some people look at me funny when I say that I don’t believe in “crying it out” – and I try not to complain to that sort of parent about the work I’m doing teaching Abbey about sleep. I feel like they see Abbey as needy and clingy when I mention that she is having an (absolutely normal) issue with sleep and screams if I leave her. But I know that I have made the right choices and that Abbey is so smart, beautiful and confident because of it. Her teachers agree…they can’t tell me enough how independent she is…how they haven’t seen a toddler in their class like her in a long time. Plus, patting Abbey’s back tonight until she fell asleep reminded me so much of when my own mommy used to pat my back before bed. That is such a fond memory. It was such a sweet reminder that mommyhood really is a blessing – I don’t think any other experience could teach me patience, diligence, humility, and the power of love the way mommy-ing does. In just one moment, I felt it all. Patting Abbey’s little back and watching her drift off, I almost forgot how stressful this week of limited sleep has been. Who knows if she’ll sleep all night tonight…or if the same routine will work tomorrow night….but we’ll see now won’t we!?
Has anyone had a similar experience with their little one?
How do you feel about sleep training and “crying it out”?
What books and advice have you found useful for teaching your little one to sleep?
What has been a favorite moment or pastime with you and your baby?