Sleep Training Update

The first night she was up roughly 30 times. It was ugly. I almost stuck her in the swing just to get some sleep. But I knew if I did the next time we tried to transition her would be the same. So instead, I rubbed her belly, gave her back her paci and climbed back into the daybed in her room. I maybe slept two hours that night. I was too tired to even do graduated extinction. I just did what I could (outside of picking her up and nursing/rocking or co-sleeping) to get her to stay in her bed and sleep. I am sure it was just as hard for her to be in a regular bed as it was for me to have her be there. 

The first day was rough. I almost threw in the towel. I cried three times. And that was just during one Ferber-driven nap. By the second nap of the day, she went down and made little to no noise. I thought it was a success until she woke up after 35 minutes. Same thing for nap three. Bedtime went so much better. She only woke up twice and I felt comfortable enough with taking her out of her crib to feed her. Both times she went back to sleep with ease. 

Today is officially day two. She napped once in her car seat while we were out and about this morning. When we got home, I focused on keeping her part of the activity going on as much as possible. When nap time came, I put her in her sleep sack and she went to bed with no fuss. Peanut slept for almost two hours. I kept going in to check on her because she was so quiet. 

I have no doubt tonight will be the same or better than the last. 

If I could go back and do it again, I would have transitioned her to her crib so much sooner. But she's my littlest and, likely, my last. So I tried to soak in as much of her newness as I could. She seemed to little to be in a big girl bed, in her own room. And after a while, I got used to hearing her little noises at night and I needed her to be there next to me making them. 

Isn't that the way sometimes? We need them more than they need us. The irony of motherhood.  

I miss waking up before her and being able to watch her sleep while I lie in bed. But seeing her face light up when I come to get her out of her room has been a good trade-off. 

Ferbering Again

Sorry for the radio silence, peeps. I've been going through a third-life crisis. I didn't have a quarter-life crisis, so this was clearly long overdue. To be honest, I struggled with a bit of baby blues around 5 months postpartum with the twins and Lola is almost 5 months old, so the timing of my current existential crisis is not lost on me.

However, this time my hormonal shift is combined with keeping up with two toddlers and making some very difficult, but very important, life changes. When life gets tough I tend to become introverted. Go figure. Yesterday I was simultaneously running on a treadmill and crying, so I can feel that a breakdown breakthrough is near.

Speaking of Miss Lola, she's such a doll. I mean really the best baby ever, and I'm only slightly biased. She's so happy and smiley, such a stark contrast from where we started. She sleeps in her swing, in our bedroom, at night (STILL) for 10-12 hours a night. Although lately her sleep is punctuated by a few wake-ups. Since this isn't my first time at the rodeo I know the wake-ups are temporary and she's likely getting ready to master a new skill (i.e. rolling).

She is also becoming harder to put down at night. I'm not the momma you want if you need to be rocked to sleep. If you're sick, I'll rock you for a year. But if you're well, go to your bed and go to sleep. Momma doesn't have the patience to sit in the dark and rock and pray that when I place your silly behind down ever so gingerly that you don't startle, thus necessitating the process start all over again.



Her fussiness at bedtime mixed with an elongated evening nap are clear signs that this kid can no longer revolve entirely around her siblings' schedule. Lola needs a routine of her own (even if it is somewhat based on the twins and their routine) and she needs some sleep training.

Thank god I wrote about this stuff when the twins were little, because coming across this post was so helpful today. I am going to reread Ferber this weekend and put a plan into action next week. I am a big fan of sleep training and Ferber in general. It's worked for our family. I know it's not for everybody. But it is for us.



One of the pieces I am struggling with is how to put a plan in place for a baby who isn't the star of the show. Doing this crap with the twins was so much easier because they were my 100% sole focus. With Lola, I ain't gonna lie, she sometimes gets left in a car seat in the mudroom cause she is sleeping and I need to get lunch down and get the twins down and then clean up from lunch and oh heyyyyy the baby is awake and crying, where the hell is she? Oh yeah...in the mudroom where you left her two hours ago. Yeah. Not awesome. But the truth.

{ Lola in the circle of neglect }

She seems so tiny to me, so I can't believe I was sleep training the twins when they were her size. Man I had balls. Anyway, I am terrified because life is already kind of rough with the twins bursting into the nursery screaming like banshees while I'm trying to put the baby down and it's already like Lord of the Flies up in this piece on a daily basis. So I'm just preparing myself with promises of twig wine and xanax (not mixed together, of course) just in case.



Anyone have experience with sleep training an infant with older kids? I'd love some tips and advice.

Once A Swinger...

So it's no secret that Lola was a bit colicky at the beginning. And I'm all about survival when it comes to being a mom. You do what you need to do to make it through the day. The kid sleeps when she's swaddled in a swing with white noise in the background. This was a great thing when she was 8 weeks old, 10 weeks old...but now she's 12 weeks old. And she's still sleeping in the swing. For TEN TO TWELVE HOURS A NIGHT. This is not a boat that I'm excited about rocking.

{ week 9 }

Clearly, she can't stay in there for safety reasons. And so the day is coming that I need to make her sleep in a crib. I keep getting all serious about it and saying "today is the day she sleeps in a crib!" and then I spend a full day alone with my trio, and we listen to the twins rant during dinner, and we give them all a bath and 8 p.m. rolls around (bedtime for the twins) and then I clean up from the chaos that is the day, feed Lauren and put her in her crib and she spits out her godforsaken pacifier every 15 minutes and cries and on my 11th trip up the stairs to the nursery I say fuck it and put her back in the swing. Because my sanity needs that kid to sleep. Survival, people. Survival.

{ week 10 }

I am fine with CIO, but she's too young or I'd Ferber her and call it a night (no pun intended). Since we don't go anywhere anymore, Joe has an excess of vacation time built up. So I talked to him about taking a week off in February and that will be the week we sleep train Lola and break this swing habit. This way we have each other to fall on when we go back to being sleepless. And if this takes longer than a week, well, then I guess I'm screwed.



Have any of you made the transition from swing to crib? How long did it take and how painful was the process? Also, how old was your little one when you transitioned him/her?

{ week 11 }

Part of me wonders if being propped up is part of the success of the swing. We have a crib wedge from Ryan's reflux days which we are thinking about using to help with the transition. I'm not sure if it's necessary, but it can't hurt.



I want to cry at the thought of going sleepless again. I mean rock myself in a closet and bawl.

Sleep Training Update and Things to Come

We came. We Ferbered. We slept.



It took five days - one of which was a waste since I was Ferbering wrong and I probably screwed up my kids more than I helped them. On day 2 the book arrived and I took a break, read 400 pages of everything you need to know about sleep, started again on day three and by day five we were golden.



The babies now go down for naps and bedtime without a single peep. They look forward to bedtime (seriously, I am not lying). Having a schedule and adhering to it seems to have helped them understand what's coming next and they are (or at least seem to be) thankful for the routine and knowing that we're building in time for both play and sleep.



Reese has always been a good sleeper; she sleeps nine to eleven hours uninterrupted on a regular basis. Her issue was that she was fussy at bed and naptimes - definitely overtired. She also only napped in her swing. Sleep training and having a more defined routine has eliminated her fussiness and she now does all sleeping in her crib.



Ryan was a total nap refuser and he'd scream like hell at nap times. Additionally, he was waking up 3-5 times per night. I stopped nursing him to sleep during nighttime wakings about two weeks before we started sleep training. As a result of sleep training he now naps/sleeps without fussing and is down to 1-2 overnight wakings. He also does all sleeping in his crib now.



In reading Ferber's book, I learned a ton about the sleep associations we, as parents, created for our kids' sleeping environments (i.e. mobiles, pacifiers, sound machines, etc.). From there I chose the associations I (and they) can live with, and which needed to be eliminated immediately (the mobile). Others, like the pacifiers and the sound machine, are the next to go and we have a plan in place for eliminating them.



I also had a major ah-ha moment with Reese. For a while I didn't understand why Reese couldn't stay awake more than an hour to an hour and a half in the mornings. I would struggle to keep this kid awake, never understanding why - after sleeping 10 hours - she couldn't stay awake for 90 minutes. So I tried a little experiment and put the baby monitor in our room (we don't use it normally because the nursery is so close to our room that you can hear the kids without it). Lo and behold, the little stinker wakes up and plays in her crib for 30 to 45 minutes before she starts to fuss for us to come get her. So by the time I was putting her down for her first nap the poor peanut had been up for almost three hours. No wonder she was a hot mess.



So what does our day look like now?

We run under the premise that at 4-5 months a baby can sustain an approximate wake time of 2 hours before needing to recharge. Each baby takes one long nap usually about 1 hour and 45 minutes to 2 hours long, two short naps around 45 minutes long and the last nap of the day is usually around 30 minutes long.



We are getting ready to go on our first family vacation, so I am waiting until we get back to make any changes to this schedule. Once we get back, I'll give them a week to adjust to being home and then we are on to sleep training phase 2 (also known as Operation Pacifier Elimination).



There are a few things I'd like to start establishing with the babies now that they are 5 months old, in hopes that by 7 months we will have a new normal.

Not on this list, but something I'm hoping will emerge as a result of these things, is Ryan sleeping 8+ hours uninterrupted. We think eliminating bedtime pacifiers will play a huge part in aiding his overnight sleep.



Also not on this list is the fact that the babies will be transitioning from breastfeeding to formula feeding at six months. This transition will allow us to have a bit more control over our day by fully scheduling feedings as opposed to feeding on schedule and on demand.



I'm hoping that all of this will allow us to create a schedule that others (read: grandparents and baby sitters) can follow easily, allowing Joe and I a much needed break. It will be fantastic (if it works) for us as well because we'll know when we can get stuff done around the house, run errands and live life instead of flying by the seat of our pants.

Saturday

My little Puff slept 12 hours last night - 6:50 to 6:50 and went down without a single peep. Her brother was up at 11:30 and then again at 5:10 a.m. when he decided that he had had enough sleep and the world was ready to wake up with him.



Joe volunteered to take him so I could get some more sleep (love that man) and I came downstairs this morning to find this

 

I love that the Ferber book is on the coffee table too. Um, yeah. Clearly Ryan hasn't mastered sleeping at night in his crib yet. But seeing these two snuggling is almost worth a party in his crib at 5 a.m. Almost.

Sleepless Nights and Endless Days

See this face?

 

This is the face of a little boy who has decided that sleep is overrated. After STTN from week 7 to 13, this little darling started waking up at 1 a.m., 4 a.m., 5:30 a.m. and for the day at 7:30 a.m. You can guess how tired his momma is. 

He wakes up, nurses and goes right back to bed no questions asked. So at first I thought he was just hungry. That this was just a growth spurt. Six weeks later this is no growth spurt. And last night, he fell asleep on the boob after three minutes which tells me the kid is also not hungry. He's just awake and doesn't know how to put himself back to bed. And we've played the back rubbing/paci game. It solves the issue for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. Then we're back up with a crying baby. 

 

He needs sleep, I need sleep, his daddy needs sleep. The only one that's sleeping is his sister. TWELVE HOURS she can sleep. My little angel baby. Her halo shines extra bright in my sleepless state.

I'm sure part of this is my fault, although some have commented that this could be our four month wakeful. Who knows? We don't really run by a set schedule and it seems to work for one twin, it even used to work for Ryan. 

The babies wake for the day around 7:30, nap around 9, 1 and 4 - sometimes they take a very short nap around 7 p.m. (I've tried putting them to bed at this time and they end up awake 45 minutes later no matter what I do). Depending on how long the 4 p.m. nap lasts and whether they snooze again at 7, bedtime is anywhere from 8:30 - 9:15.

This weekend we're Ferbering. I don't know how I feel about it, but our pediatrician recommended a modified Ferber at our 4 month WBV. I know we have to commit to doing this for three days, hence why we're starting tonight. I have back up through the three day weekend. And hopefully by the time Joe goes back to work on Tuesday, we'll have our other angel baby back. Our pediatrician said that, given Ryan's weight and age, he should be able to sleep 10 hours without eating.

We're moving Reese into our room in the PNP while this goes on so she isn't woken up by him fussing and one of us is going to sleep in the guest bedroom (which is next to the nursery) to be on timer duty.

 

{ what mommy, you don't like hanging out at 4 a.m.? }

Joe's MBA program started back up and he's been working super long hours. My tank is empty. I'm so exhausted and run down lately that I actually came down with a fever earlier this week. Nothing like taking care of two infants and burning a cool 101. Death warmed over. Suddenly letting my kid cry for three and five minute intervals doesn't seem so bad.



Has anyone tried Ferber with success? Any advice you have, I'm completely open to. Thanks in advance!