Week 7: The "S" Word

It's been a sleepless, restless, exhausting week yet again at the House of Noah.

Instead of sleeping 2 hour stretches at night, it seems Noah has decided to stir every hour or so instead.  So considerate of him.  And during the day, he has now decided that he would like us to hold him for all his naps.  That's a lot of holding (and aching arms and shoulders) when you consider that he naps 8-10 hours a day.

So even though Noah's barely turned 6 weeks old, I decided this can't go on any longer.  We are all simply too exhausted.  It's one thing to indulge a newborn when he's your first and only child.  But it's another thing entirely when you're also trying to care for a very needy toddler who is constantly weepy because he's not getting even a quarter of the attention that he's used to--poor Judah.

The spouse gives Noah some 'sun' time.  We make fat babies.

So I told the spouse we are going to start sleep-training.  Now.  Ah, the dreaded 'S' word.  The bane of all parent's existence (except those lucky 10% who have kids that sleep like rocks--how I hate those people).  I scoured all the baby books for support but none of them suggested sleep-training until the baby was at least   2 and a half months.  Better to wait till 12 weeks.

Well...if I waited any longer, I'm pretty sure I'd be dead from exhaustion.  So, nope.  The only thing I took comfort in was that many books say 15 to 20 minutes of crying wouldn't hurt a newborn.  So, that's something.

The first night of sleep training I had very modest goals for Noah.  I only wanted him to hold out for at least 2.5 hours before nursing him.  And I told myself I wouldn't let him cry for more than 20 minutes.  He actually did really well and only had 1 crying bout of 20 minutes long.  Turns out, I've been going to nurse him too early--without giving him a chance to grunt and settle back down himself!  I've decided to sleep well away from his room now and put on ear plugs so I only hear his 'real' cries.

The next night of sleep training was even better.  He cried 2 separate times for 8 minutes each time and slept 3.5 hour stretches.  I heard the Hallelujah chorus in my head and dared to hope.

But you know the thing about babies...just when you think you have it figured out, they often throw you and your damned optimism out the window and take a turn for the worse.

We'll see what tonight brings...

Meanwhile I've been consoling myself in the arms of the British aristocracy.  Yes, I'm finally watching the PBS sensation--Downton Abbey--while endlessly holding and rocking the baby.  So, silver lining after all.

50 Shades of Toddlerdom

I've totally fallen off the blog-wagon lately so this is my catch-up post.  Warning--it ain't gonna be pretty.

There are literally hundreds of topics I've wanted to blog about but will probably never get to because my due date is TODAY and although the baby's probably not coming today, it will be a comin' soon and my life will end (for at least 2 months).  And so will my will to blog.

So, before I completely let things slip away in the sands of time, unrecorded for posterity, here is a completely random short list of stuff I wanted to blog about.

(1) Major mommy fail--I am my kid's own worst potty-training enemy.  Judah's been ready for underwear for at least 6 months now.  He always tells me "poo-poo coming" and goes wonderfully in his potty every time.  BUT, when he tells me "pee-pee coming" I reply "Just go in your diaper."

Sorry Judah--you look so proud but these will just have to wait!

I know, how bad am I?!  I have no real excuse except that I'm lazy.  It's really hard to get up from the floor or couch when you're in the 3rd trimester.  I hate helping him get dressed again after bathroom trips cuz he's SO wiggly.  And, the main reason--I hate public restrooms.  Sorry Judah--mommy doesn't want to take you to the nasty bathroom at Target or the mall or anywhere really.

When I told this to his pediatrician she literally said this--Great!  You can just send him off to college in diapers!

Hmmmm...someone loves sarcasm.

(2) The co-sleep creep--How we almost became co-sleepers.  The main reason I haven't blogged for a while is because I haven't slept well for the last 10 days.  Because for the last 10 days Judah started to crawl into our bed to sleep with us.

For his entire life he has slept in his own room but suddenly the dude decides he needs to run out of his room at 4 am and crawl in with mommy (probably because we just transitioned him from his crib to a real bed).  At first we tolerated this because most of the night was over and no one wants to roll out of their warm bed in the freezing cold and set off the worst alarm noise ever known to mankind--a shrieking toddler.

But then 4 am became 2 am.  And 2 am became midnight.  And before you know it, Judah refused to start out his bedtime in his room.  Being the passive conflict-avoider that I am, I was ready to give in to his demand to co-sleep except for the fact that I felt like a total zombie every morning.  Being woken up 4-5 times a night by a toddler whining for you to "pat" him back to sleep is just not viable.

And so we bit the bullet and sleep-trained him YET AGAIN 2 nights ago.  Judah cried long and hard and said some things over and over again that will always make me die a little inside every time I think about it--Mommy, where are you?  Where is my mommy?  Mommy I crying!  Mommy, can you pat me a little bit? But in the end he gave up.  Or as the spouse so horribly puts it--we broke his spirit!

No, but seriously, I'm so thankful for the advice and stories of other mom's experiences.  Made me feel like I wasn't the most horrible parent in the world and that I was actually doing the kid a service--teaching him how to soothe himself.

But part of me can't help but wonder if I'm scarring him for life with all this sleep-training...

(3) Candyland--the ultimate personality test.  A thoughtful friend bought Judah his first board game over Christmas--Candyland!  I had fond memories playing this with my older brother growing up.  Okay, that's a lie--I have one traumatic memory of playing this with my older brother when I was around Judah's age.

I just remember being super rage-pissed when my brother won the game and flinging the board upside-down and causing all the hundreds of pieces to go flying around the room.  My brother was so annoyed at my hulk-smash reaction that he vowed never to play that game with me again.  And we never did.

Judah, on the other hand, had a completely different mentality than me at his age.  When we played the game Judah decided he wanted to make up his own rules.  Even though I got to the castle first and he acknowledged that "mommy won," he quickly moved himself into the castle in his next turn and declared that he had won too.

That's my look of bewilderment mixed with subtle fear.  I don't know what to do with rule-breakers.

And forget taking one card at a time from the top of the pile.  Judah would go through each card until he found the special ones that he liked--the ones with a picture of a candy or pastry on it.

The entire time I kept saying "No, that's not how you play the game Judah" or "You're not following the rules Judah" and "You're playing the game wrong!"  And believe me, Judah understands the rules (because he largely followed them the first time we played), he just subsequently decided to ignore them.  He wanted to play the game his own way.

And that's when I realized--this child is nothing like me.  I am a goal-oriented, rule-abiding, authority-loving follower (and sometimes rage-a-holic).  My toddler is a rule-smashing, authority-ignoring, goal-reorienting drummer of his own beat.

I am and have always been a sheep.  While he's more like...his dad.

Heaven help me.

(4) Lastly, I leave you with one of my favorite memories of the last week.  Judah opened his sleepy eyes one morning in bed with us and smiled like an angel.  With my heart bursting with love, I said "Judah, you are my special guy."

And without missing a beat Judah replied "And you my special lady."

Awwwww, can't you just hear the angels in heaven weeping with the tears of a hundred unicorns?

I know, you're welcome.

Weekend From Hell

Last weekend the dreadful work project that I was warned about finally hit my shores.

The clients gave us instructions to start drafting Friday at 4pm.  The deadline for the first draft was Monday morning.  It was a project that would take about 35 hours, if you worked at a reasonable pace.

So let's do the math, 35 hours of work crammed over Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.  NOOOOOOO!

Thank goodness for daddy day-care.  Judah and dad had lots of bonding time over little cars.

Of course I had a panic attack at 2am on Friday and couldn't sleep the rest of the night--adrenaline coursing through my veins like I was being chased by a pack of wolves.

But working all weekend was not the worst part by a long shot.  The worst part was missing my baby.  I saw so little of him over the weekend (and so little in the subsequent week days due to continued crazy late work schedules) that he's started to get really clingy.

He'll howl if I leave the room.  He won't let his dad hold him or feed him if I'm in the room.  And, worst of all, he's completely regressed in his bedtime behavior.

For over 5 months now, we've had it VERY good.  I'd nurse him a little and then he would lean and point toward his crib and voluntarily suggest that I put him in his crib to sleep.  "Crib, sleep," he would say.  "Bye-bye," he would tell me as I lowered him in.  Every. Single. Day.  It was awesome!

But just this last week he completely changed.  As I put him in his crib he started howling "NOOOOO!  Sleeeeeeep!  Mooooooommy!" (meaning:  I want to sleep on Mommy, not in the crib by myself.)

He cried for 15 minutes until the Spouse went to comfort him and stealthily sneak him in his crib, deeply asleep.

Sigh, guess it's back to the old sleep-training drawing board for Judah!

102, 103--Mon, Tue

Monday I tried to ferberize your nap times. It was good and bad. First the good news.

For your morning nap, you cried for 40 minutes before dozing off. Not bad! I frankly felt like it was a miracle. Since your birth, you have never napped without assistance--holding, bouncing, rocking, etc.

For your next few naps you cried for about 2-3 minutes before sleeping. Good job baby!

The bad news is you don't stay down for too long--about 30 minutes only. I tried to make you stay down longer by leaving you to cry, but you just kept crying and crying and wouldn't stop for over 40 minutes. Here's a pic of you waking up sad from one of your crying episodes.


But after you eat, you're a happy guy again.


I decided to just let you wake up after 30 minutes since you certainly weren't going to nap after crying forever. But in the ergo, I could make you nap 1.5-2 hours pretty reliably. I wonder if you're not getting good quality sleep since you're now only taking these short catnaps? I decided to still ergo you once in a while so you'd at least sleep an hour sometimes.

Monday night you cried for 3 minutes when we put you down to sleep and then you slept great the rest of the night. Gosh, this ferberizing thing is going a thousand times better than I anticipated! I feel like we're not even "training" you since your just sleeping right through the night anyway.

Tuesday we went for another pediatrician check-up and more shots--polio and hep B. Those shots didn't sting as much as the previous so you were in a pretty good mood still for the rest of the day--thank goodness.

You are now 92nd percentile in weight (16 lbs 8oz) and 97th percentile in height (27 in) and 50th percentile in head circumference. Same as always. I wonder if you're going to grow up to be 7 feet tall?!

Oh, and one more very cute, but annoying thing--you've started to talk "on the boob." Instead of concentrating on chowing down, you'll sporadically babble and pull off and look me in the eyes and give me a big toothless grin. I don't want to encourage this behavior, but how can I not smile back at this adorable little face?

101--Sunday

Sleep Training Day 1

All day today I steeled myself for what I anticipated would be the hardest night of my life--listening to my sweet boy wailing and moaning in distress into the wee hours of the night.

By the time your night-night nursing came around, I was as jittery as a toddler at Halloween. I nursed you at 6pm and you fell dead asleep on the boob, as usual. But I took a deep breath, jiggled you until your little eyes opened, and then put you down in your crib tummy down.

You started fussing and turning your head from side to side, and I thought, "Here it comes..." But after a few seconds you just fell asleep. Very anti-climactic.

We decided you could only eat every 4 hours (and then later, we'd lengthen it gradually to every 5) so I waited eagerly to see if you'd make it to 10pm without waking up. And you did! You woke up at 11:15 and I fed you right away, jiggled you awake, and then put you down again.

You slept easily again, but then woke up at 12:40am crying hard. I thought, "This is it! Here we go!" You wailed and screamed and sounded so baleful and angry while your dad checked in on you at regular intervals. I tried to sleep with earplugs and really loud white noise, but it was impossible to ignore you and wonder how you were doing.

And then, magically, around 1:00am you were quiet. I nudged your dad and said, "He's quiet!" You were sound asleep and didn't wake up again until 3:40am, your next feeding time. And then you didn't wake up until 7am.

I, sadly, didn't sleep at all--I was so jazzed and wired about the whole thing.

Thoughts--So, you only cried 20 minutes during your first night of sleep-training. I'm kind of disappointed. I expected at least an hour of heavy sobbing and maybe a little vomit. Oh well. Although things could be considered to have gone well, I really don't think we're out of the woods yet. I think you just had one of your really good sleepy nights and it isn't representative of what you're going to do on average.

The real hard training is going to be during the day for your naps. You're not a good napper and you've NEVER napped without motion and a lot of assistance--either swinging or bouncing. I'm afraid you're going to skip all your naps today, crying through each one. Gulp.