Prescription for Sleep

It was no secret that Brother slept in our room until he turned six. In fact, it was often a subject we openly complained about. When we first brought him home at eight months old, we were overly cautious about everything. One of the many things we were afraid of was the effects of him not forming a solid attachment to us. Of course he was attached to us right away, more to Jamie than to me. Not to say anything about my mothering. It's just that Jamie is an amazing father. He can't help it. He's a baby magnet. He draws them in. My strategy to form a solid attachment with my baby included rocking him. I don't regret it, even now. It did lead to him sleeping in our room for five years though.

When he was around three we convinced him that it would be way cooler to sleep in a Disney Cars themed bed tent than on a mattress next to our bed. He made it all the way through the night for three nights in a row. Then a storm came. The power transformer carrying power to our house that attached to our house right outside of Brother's window blew up in the middle of the night. Three things happened at once: a blinding blue flash, a loud boom, and the drum roll of a screaming toddler's feet zipping across the hallway to our bedroom. He was traumatized. He is seven now and still talks about "the scary night."

We left it alone and let him sleep on a mattress on our floor indefinitely. When we started talking about bringing Baby into our family though, we had to make some hard choices and sleeping arrangements was one of those hard choices. We managed to get Brother into his own bed, and even got Baby into her own crib. We still had to rock Baby to sleep and lay down with Brother until he fell asleep, but we were very proud of our accomplishments. In fact, I wrote a blog post about it. I thought that was as good as it could get. It was still stressful when one parent had to put two kids to bed at the same time, but that only happened once a week.

I stand corrected. It got better. At Baby's fifteen month checkup our pediatrician asked if she was going to sleep by herself. My answer was a proud, "Yes, she sleeps all night in her crib." Then as I was saying it I remembered the week before when she woke up six times in one night. I added, "Well, most nights."

Our pediatrician is perceptive and noticed that I didn't answer the question. He said, "So you lay her down awake and she goes to sleep by herself?"

I laughed, then caught myself when I realized he was serious. I didn't know that was possible. I'd heard parents say that's how they did it, but I still didn't believe it. I told him we'd have to start doing that with Brother first. His eyes widened. He's usually very laissez faire when it comes to parenting. He teaches us to handle things on our own and rarely gives orders when he isn't asked. So when he pushed the sleep issue we listened. He nicely asked me when I was going to stop being selfish and let her be independent. I hadn't thought of it that way. He said it wouldn't cause permanent emotional effects from letting her cry. I knew that was true…for her. I laughed when I told him the lasting emotional damage would be mine and not hers. He says in many couples one parent can't handle crying when the other can. Jamie had to look all manly in front of the Dr. and made it clear that he didn't mind the crying when he knows she's safe in the crib. So our Dr. gave us a prescription for sleep.

Step #1 Establish a bedtime routine. It should last for 20-30 minutes. Something predictable to start signaling to Baby that we are getting ready to go to bed. For our bedtime routine we give her a bath, give her a baby massage while putting on her coconut oil and creamy lotion, then we go around the house and tell everyone goodnight, then we rock her for a few minutes.

Step #2 for me, leave the house. Dr.'s orders. :) He said since I can't take the crying I should leave, go for a walk, or just get away. I decided on a hot bath with both bathroom fans on so I couldn't hear a thing.

Step #2 for Jamie, lay her down and walk away. While Jamie was rocking her for a few minutes he talked quietly telling her it's time for night night, and telling her he loves her. Then he laid her down and walked out of the room. Of course she cried right away.

Step #3 Set a timer for 10 minutes. If she was still crying when the timer goes off, he would go into her room and pick her up and soothe her for 30 seconds or less. Then he leaves again.

Step #4 Repeat Step #3 as needed. Our Dr. said on average the first night takes 45 minutes. and by the fourth night you'll not hear much crying at all. Our results were similar. The first night for us took 35 minutes and on the fifth night she didn't cry at all.

Her preferred sleeping position is on her face, butt in the air.

The first night we started working on this with Baby, we had a talk with Brother. We told him Baby is being brave and learning to go to bed by herself. He giggled in that "ha ha my sibling is in trouble" way. Then we told him he needed to be a good example for her and be brave and go to sleep on his own too. his laughter quickly turned into a quivering bottom lip. We tucked him in, turned on his nightlight, and reminded him that we would be right outside the door if he got scared. We didn't hear anything from him for the rest of the night.

He looks so sweet when he's sleeping.

I have free time at night again! And this is all thanks to my wonderful husband. He completes me. When I'm not strong enough be the tough parent I need to be, he takes over and gets the job done. Our whole family is now well rested and happy.

Thank you Jamie!!

Kids Have Their Own Bedrooms for a Reason

I am pleased to announce that after six years of having at least one child in my bedroom at all times, everyone in my household is now sleeping in his or her own room. And it really wasn't as hard a transition as I anticipated.

We've tried this before. When Brother first made the move to a toddler bed we tried it. We were in our little 778 square foot condo downtown. We were all so close anyway, we thought it would go over pretty well. It didn't. The only way he would fall asleep in his room was if Jamie or I laid on the floor holding his hand until he'd been asleep for a few hours. If he'd only been asleep one hour when we got up, Brother would immediately sit up and start screaming. Once we moved to house #1 we tried it again. This time I tried to include him and tried to encourage some independence. He picked out a bed tent and told me he would sleep in his own room if he had the super cool Lightning McQueen bed tent. Never take a four year old at his word. I'm sure he meant it at the moment, but that first night we put him in the bed/tent, he was velcroed to my leg before I could turn the light off. It was a struggle including many nights of Jamie or me sleeping on the hard floor next to his bed all night long, but he finally started sleeping in his own room on his own. He even let us leave the room while he was awake and fell asleep on his own. One week later the transformer outside his window blew up. Not the cool robot transformer, he would have thought that was awesome, the power transformer bringing power in to the house from the street. It just happened to connect right outside his window. From across the hall Jamie and I saw a blue flash of light and a loud boom. At the same time we heard a toddler's scream and a little boy diving headfirst into my bed. Brother didn't sleep by himself another night in that house.

With all the transition from that house to our new house (we lived in an apartment for a few months in between) we didn't try too hard to get him in his own room. Baby was born in the middle of all of it to add a little more to our plates. (A welcomed side dish.)

Baby was a good sleeper. By about eight weeks she was sleeping most of the night. As soon as we started bragging, she hit a growth spurt and started demanding food every three hours around the clock. The growth spurt passed but she had gotten used to her midnight snacks - both of them. At her latest check up we consulted her doctor and he assured us that she should be able to fast for eight hours and we wouldn't be bad parents if we tried to stretch her feedings out that long at night. Jamie and I shared a look of hope and decided it was time to take our bedroom back.

Baby was easy. We just laid her in bed one night and that was it. We got a really nice camera with great night vision on it. So we could watch her every move. It's very entertaining at times. This morning I watched her pick her head up, look around for her pacifier, pick it up, pop it into her mouth, and go right back to sleep. Even with the camera though, I missed her. I realized part of the reason they both had stayed in my room for so long was because of me and my need to be near them all the time.

Parenting is a complicated dance of constantly wanting to be with your children and constantly wanting your own time and space. When I do have time away from them, I feel guilty for leaving them and longing to be with them again. Letting go is hard. Taking Brother to kindergarten was the same type of feeling. I want him to grow up and become his own person, but I want to keep him with me as my baby too. I was okay with his first day. I didn't even cry. About a week into school on the first day I didn't have to drag him out of my car with the help of the teacher on bus duty, I hugged him and told him I loved him and he took off running. He ran all the way down the long sidewalk and into the school and never looked back, not even a quick over the shoulder glance for his mommy. I cried that day. That was a step towards his independence. Not sleeping on the floor of my bedroom was another step.

Getting brother into his own bed took careful planning. When I first asked him why he didn't want to sleep in his own bed he had a one word answer. Zombies. That might be my fault. He has never seen an actual zombie movie, not even close. The boy is obsessed with Plants vs. Zombies, though. He loves the zombies. He pretends he is a zombie. I thought he could handle the truth, and he caught me off guard. He was firing off questions and I was trying to answer them as honestly as I could in a way he could understand.

"What does Baby say when she sees me play Plants vs. Zombies?"

"What does the Zombie say when the squash jumps on his head?"

"What does sunflower say when the zombie eats him?"

"What's a jalapeno?"

"What's the jalapeno say when he burns the zombies up?"

"What's a zombie?"

I had been doling out answer after answer, some answers were creative and imaginative, some were simply, "I have no idea. What do you think he says?"

But I knew the answer to the zombie question. I didn't have to think about what an inanimate object would say to another inanimate object. "It's when someone dies and then comes back to life, except they only want to eat people's brains."

After that answer, the questions stopped. I looked up. He was still watching his game, but the widened eyes and nervous smile told me I'd crossed the line. Too much honesty from a parent can be just as dangerous as too little honesty. I tried to reassure him. "They're not real. You know that, right?" He shook his head in agreement, but I knew that he didn't believe it. After that he started having occasional nightmares. He would wake up crying and he would tell me he had a bad dream but he wouldn't tell me what it was about. One night he finally told me that it was zombies who were haunting his dreams. Great. I mentally and sarcastically patted myself on the back.

With all of this in mind I approached the subject carefully. I made sure that Brother knew about the revolutionary new zombie resistant paint out on the market. Once the walls are painted, they can't come in the room, they disappear as soon as a toe creeps over the threshold. He hadn't heard about it. Next I let him pick the color. I promised myself I would go with any color he chose. I wanted his room to be his own. So I crossed my fingers hoping he wouldn't say black - the color he usually picks. He chose gray so that it would look like the Death Star. I could live with gray. That's all it took. One creative lie and a little control over the design.

The first night, I laid down with him. He pretended we were inside the Death Star. He threw his arms around me and said, "I love you so much, Mommy. Can we sleep inside the Death Star every night?" I answered with an emphatic yes.