We’re still crossing our fingers
Nov 16th, 2010 by Peter
After 9 months of interrupted sleep during the nights it seems Mark finally started sleeping through the night.
Our fingers are crossed big time though. Its only day 4 of that happening and you never know if he has a relapse. Prospects look good so far though.
So what did the trick? It’s a mix of many things well helped on its way by a book Ryan suggested a while back. I recommend the book, but as always, it may not work for everyone. The book is packed with things to consider, and even if it is not exactly fitting your sleepless situation, the inputs will help you around all corners possible.
Our situation was extra complicated as we had our plans interjected by my fathers serious illness (may write more about that later). This meant that we temporary had my mom live with us. That was 2 days after I finally convinced C that Mark should sleep in his own room. Instead my mom got that room, and thus Mark was back in our bedroom. Major setback.
All in all our winning formula is a combination of many things: Keeping routine when tugging him in, less singing/hugging him to sleep, more pacifiers strategically placed in Marks bed, short and consistent re-tugging him when he wakes up during night time and last but not least: no more breastfeeding during nightly wakeups.
C was a hard nut to crack about the last part. She is a mother after all. Last Friday evening she finally caved and agreed to try it. I aided her breaking mother’s heart by cynically managing the extremely hysterical cry phase at 3am (note: not me, but Mark). It took me 45 minutes of tugging him in, leaving, hearing him scream at the top of his lungs, waiting 5 minutes, telling C that it was all right, go back and do it all again until Mark finally dosed of. Then Saturday and Sunday he slept like a baby (oh wait, he is one isn’t he?). And oddly enough so did we. Well, except the confused moments at 2 and 4am when we woke up in turns and felt the urge to go check up on Mark. It was too silent to be true.
Last night he did wake up once, but that was understandable. He had moved in his sleep and needed to be moved a bit for comfort. C fixed that fast and with no drama. A good night too all in all.
That makes 4 days where both C and I managed 7 hours of “uninterrupted” sleep for the first time in ages. That’s a new feeling and highly recommended ;-)
In due time, we’ll hopefully regain our normal energy level, so we can attend other the pressing matter with my parents and whatever next crisis that’s bound to wait around the corner.
Looking back I still can’t believe we pulled through the last 9 months without killing each other. Still fingers crossed though.
That’s great news Peter! And great to have a further recommendation for Mindell’s book — it came highly recommended to me via a family member who had twins (what’s worse than a screaming baby at 4am? TWO screaming babies!)
We dabbled with a few of the principles in the book, but after a couple setbacks realized that we needed to hold off until we were 100% “in” before trying again. I think we both faced the similar challenge of convincing our wives that the screaming for a cuddle/boobie will pass — I should get some pointers from you on how you managed to do it.
Interestingly enough, we’ve gone completely the other way for the time being and are co-sleeping with Casey. I was a bit against giving up “MY” bed, but we’re about 2 weeks in and it’s been great. Casey sleeps like a dream, he stirs and Maggie feeds him several times a night, but because he’s right beside her she barely wakes up and I don’t at all.
Obviously this goes against much of what’s in Mindell’s book and I fully agree that it’s creating sleep dependencies that will need to be broken, but we weren’t exactly avoiding them as it was and this gets us all sleeping a lot more, which is nice. It also has the added benefit of the room now coming with a built-in alarm clock — the little dude wakes me up at 7:20 nearly every morning with a squawk or giggle (I tried to get him to play music, but apparently that feature doesn’t come with this model JK).
No need to jinx it, but were still running smooth with minor bumps. Somewhere between 0-1 times every night Mark wakes us up with a little whimpering, but that’s usually due to him being misplaced in bed. Still that’s nothing compared to the nightmare before that and really nothing that stops us from getting a good nights sleep.
Oddly enough it seems that the little fellow only like to sleep on his stomach, which we originally were cautioned about due to risk of SIDS. Now at 9 months and much stronger that’s not an issue anymore according to our appointed baby nurse, so we let him. One thing I can’t figure is why he sometimes insists on dragging his knees up under him, so he basically sleeps lying on all four?! Looks weird but seems to work for him.
I’m happy to hear that you have a plan working for you atm. too Ryan. I fear it’s not a lasting solution though, but that only you can tell. I know the feeling when you’re worn out. You have to pick whatever works better. Having the kid in the same bed was something we tried too, but he still woke up the entire time craving for his pacifier or breastfeeding. I sleep lightly and thus woke up all the time with headache and dizziness just around the corner. A kid in the bed is not helping erhm. “snuggle-time” either. On a positive note trying it and failing helped us look elsewhere for solutions.
I think the book is excellent, but I also believe you have to stick with its programme for it to work. So it’s sensible of you to pick the battle at the correct time. I also believe that different things work for different parents/kids. You should stick to your own gut feeling about what’s right and wrong for your own situation. If you fail, at least you have tried and learned.
I was wondering; has Maggie started working again? C has and that combined with heavily interrupted nights finally made her succumb to trying out advice from the book. Can’t say that that’s an advice at all, but that partially did the trick convincing my wife. I don’t know how good Maggie is at getting naps when possible, but my wife is miserable at it. She sees every free hour as a chance to vacuum, wash clothes or do homework. So she was extra exhausted from the bad nights and very open to suggestions in the end.
Waking you up at 7.20?! Lucky you! :-) Our little “alarm clock” is set at 5.45 – 6.00am. On the positive side that’s when we have to get up anyway to get C to work in time.
Ohhh btw, the book also taught us 6 months of breastfeeding during the night is sufficient for the kid’s growth. It was very hard to convince C that this was true though.
C still breastfeeds during the day, so Mark will get his boost to the immune system. Even though C insisted that it was a bad idea to breastfeed at all when we tried turning Mark into a sleep machine, she had to cave from tension of full “tanks” :-) In the end it seems to be no problem. As long as Mark don’t associate breastfeeding with sleep we’re fine.