Elise's sleep journey: Part 3



I think this is my first-ever picture of a
sleeping baby. My general rule is that
you don't jeopardize what you work so
hard to achieve.

 Sometimes it seems to me that of all my friends, I'm the most neurotic about my kids' sleep--and yet my babies are among the very worst sleepers of the bunch (not so with my toddler!).

I've even had friends tell me they use me as an example to other friends to let them know "it could be worse--you could be Mary!" followed by a rendition of my latest horror story. I don't mind--if I could brighten someone's outlook with my sleep-deprived state of suffering, I'll be happy to.

I do find it ironic that I'm approached for advice on a regular basis, being "the one who knows about sleep," but yet have failed so miserably with my own very young children who, apparently, have pored over none of the sleep books that I have.

When I last wrote about Elise's sleep (in the post entitled Yummy, Delicious Sleep, which was actually the second part of Elise's sleep journey), she'd learned to suck her thumb as a method of self-soothing and was only waking up once or twice a night. As late as a week and a half ago, we'd both slept a glorious 5-hour stretch.

However, whether she's willing herself across portions of the rug to reach the really cool toy 6 inches away (she doesn't quite understand that she's not yet able to crawl, and won't let that stop her from achieving her goals) or screaming for the whole neighborhood to hear because I didn't quite get the bite of mushed mango into her mouth fast enough (I may have wanted to take a bite of my own dinner, for instance), Elise can be a persistent little bugger.

"But I liked seeing Mommy 5 times a night!" she began to insist. And to prove her point, she contracted a head cold so that I had no choice but to visit her.

As I dutifully trekked into Elise's room to settle my poor, hoarse baby, my only consolation was that "it has to get better when she's over her cold." It didn't.

Soon, Elise lost any ability to settle herself at nighttime, and naps were beginning to be endangered as well. I stumbled through my days, refusing to succomb completely to my exhaustion other than using it as an excuse to let the house go a bit. I ventured to the online sleep forums and was greeted with the sunny advice to either:

1.) Just get someone to watch the kids while I catch up on sleep during the day. (Anyone want to come over every day for 8 hours and cook dinner and get groceries and clean the floors while engaging both kids in age-aapropriate activities?)
2.) Put the baby down for naps every 2.75 hours after waking. She's clearly overtired. (She clearly wasn't.)

I also evaluated my personal notes showed that Elise seemed to be getting frustrated at waking up so often, and wide awake when I ventured into her room. Could it be that she wasn't really a fan of these night wakings anymore either? Maybe she wanted a change as much as I did.

Friends, who kindly told me that I didn't look at all the worse for wear started to talk about their success with sleep training. I took the hint. It was time for a little more cry-it-out.

I did have my limits. I insisted on relatively frequent checks, and I would not let the baby cry endlessly. And so we began, with me putting the baby down for bed and then heading out for dinner and a pep talk with a friend. Before I left, I made Matt promise in blood that he would check/comfort Elise regularly and call with updates on her situation.

Partway through dinner, the phone rang. Elise had quieted for a while, but just started crying again. A few minutes later, another phone call: Elise was definitely asleep!

And she mostly stayed that way, except during two nicely-space feeding intervals and until 6-ish in the morning. I have never been so happy to endure two night feedings.

But how would the daytime sleep go? I braced myself, but crying never came (except 30 seconds of sympathy crying when I was dragging a crying toddler out of the baby's room at the start of naptime). Nor did she cry when I put her down for bed last night. Was the worst of it over?

And then 9:30 rolled around and Elise popped awake. Awake she stayed for the next 50 minutes, followed by just enough sleep for me to almost drift off, followed by a couple more minutes of crying that left Matt and I wondering whether she had rolled into a quite awkward position.

The next person to wake up was me, at 3:30. I couldn't resist: I sneaked into Elise's room to check on my littlest. Who of course woke up, but not before I could ascertain that she had flipped onto her tummy and her little legs were sticking out the side of the crib.

And that was the position I found the baby in again at 5:40, when I again fed her so that that whole family wouldn't be up for the day pre-dawn. The must be something I'm missing about how snugly crib rails are.

At 7:13, I again found my newly formed tummy sleeper awake, and we happily started our day.

Naps, by the way, have been shorter now that Elise's night sleep is more consolidated. I will miss them, but I think my babies are simply unable to regularly get more than 13-ish hours a day after a certain age. And believe me, I try.

I'm pretty sure it's only going to get better from here--but I'm equally sure there will be a few more bumps in the road. Stay tuned to hear the rest.


 The story of the photos: I'm not usually blessed with the need to wake Elise from a nap, but it does happen. On this particular day, I mentioned to Kalina that in a few minutes we'd need to wake Elise up so we could head out to _____ (I forget). She disappeared up the stairs as I readied 2-3 snacks for Kalina, water for both of us, a meal for Elise complete with bib and spoon, and a million other little things. I figured the girl was collecting her cats to bring along.

Kalina came back down a few minutes later to inform me that Elise was awake. "That's strange," I thought. "The baby monitor is quiet." I attributed it to toddler error. "Yes, Kalina." I said, probably patronizingly. "We're headed up to wake the baby pretty soon. Should we go now?"

"Yes!" said the girl with a knowing smile. She lead me proudly up the stairs. I knew something was wrong when we came to Elise's room, which had lamplight streaming out of the open doorway. As my baby usually (read: always) sleeps behind a closed door in near-complete dark, my heart almost left my body as I wondered what other surprises Kalina had in store for me.

I think I laughed when I was greeted only by my sleeping baby! Somehow Elise can sleep through a toddler intrustion, but not a middle-of-the-night Mommy check. There was only one thing to do: I rushed downstairs to grab my camera and happily snapped away.

Elise did wake up moments later, and only appeared slightly confused--albeit not squinty-eyed--at all the activity in her room.