Sleeping Through the Night

Let's just make an abbreviation for this one...STTN.

Anna in her Rock n' Play. She slept well here for a while. Things went downhill when we made the move to the crib.

I will not lie. I am not one to gush over rocking my baby for hours on end, especially in the middle of the night. And this one, our third baby Anna, may have needed the most middle of the night rocking yet. She is wearing me out!

I am editing this to add that although this is tough for me, I am thankful for those times of just me and her with no siblings to interrupt. Getting to pray for her and have sweet quiet time is a blessing. Maybe she just wants the quiet time with Mommy too and I should be flattered that she is still not STTN. :)

Our first was a sleeping champ. He was the dream baby! He had a schedule from very early on and we honestly did very little sleep training. He loved to sleep and it came easily. He STTN at 12 weeks (and he was a preemie that was 7 weeks early!).

Our second was our fussiest. Sleep did not come as easily and still to this day she needs less sleep than her brother. She required the carseat on the dryer to sleep for the first several months of her life. However, after about 12 weeks or so, she would stay asleep easily at night once you got her to sleep. She also probably STTN around 3 months. (Too bad I don't have true record of this!) Eventually we had to let her cry it out at bedtime, around 4 or 5 months old. But I knew that once she went to sleep, she'd sleep through the night.

Enter the third child. Not our fussiest, but easily the one who has had the most night wakings. The longest stretch of sleep she has given us was 8 hours at about 9 weeks old. However, it happened only one time after a traumatic ER visit when she was pretty sick and feverish. It was totally a sick thing. Since then, the longest she's gone is about 5-6 hours. I know that doctors consider that STTN, but I don't. :)

The biggest problem is how long it takes her to fall back asleep after waking to eat. She is 4 months old now and one night last week I was up with her from 12-3:30am!

Let me give two key pieces of info now:

1. She still falls asleep in her swing for all sleep times. Naps are 100% in her swing (which is completely against the advice of my FAVORITE sleep book...but with the third, you really do whatcha gotta do!). Swaddle, paci, swing and she's out. At bedtime, I move her to the crib an hour or so later. She's down for the night around 6:30 or 7, but wakes between 12 and 1am and then often after that.

2. We were not ok with letting her cry too long due to the hoarse voice she has had since about 5 weeks old. We didn't want to make it worse by letting her cry for an hour at bedtime and naps (something I am totally ok with, though I know - and completely understand - that some aren't!). We think its due to reflux and she's been on a stronger med for a few weeks now.

I'm fairly certain these two things have contributed to her night waking frequency. I cannot wait for her to sleep from 6:30pm to 6:30am.

I tell you all this to preface the poll I've added to the right sidebar! Maybe this is selfish, but I think I want to know that my other two STTN on the early side and that our third is only slightly spoiled. :) Meaning, she's more average in the fact that she still hasn't STTN at 4 months. Please, tell me that is true and that I haven't ruined her sleeping habits for the rest of her life.

Since you can't vote more than once, just pick one of your children. (Maybe the one who STTN the latest?? :)

We are officially going to be crying it out at bedtime tonight. No more swing for bedtime. Once we master bedtime, then we'll move to ditching the swing for naps. She has a good routine, so hopefully this won't be too painful.

Pray for us! And offer your own stories that will give myself and others hope that babies do eventually STTN.

Ask An Author: Bedtimes Part II

Hey, I thought I would chime in with my answers to these questions:

1. Just wondering what kind of bedtime routine you all use to get your kids around this age to go to sleep! My 2 1/2 year old refuses to lay down in her bed by herself at night and go to sleep on her own. Once she is asleep...she stays that way all night, but it is a battle every night to get her to sleep.

For my almost 3 year old, bedtime routine is to pick out a book, go up to bed, read one book and a few Bible stories. Then I kiss him and say goodnight. He says he needs a drink of water. I tell him he can have a drink of water if he comes straight back to bed and goes to sleep. He agrees. We get a drink, then get back in bed. I kiss him goodnight and leave the room. This is a BIG improvement over where we were two months ago when this question was e-mailed to us! At that point, I was having to lie down with Samuel and have him beg me to stay in bed with him and "sleep with him a little bit". It was DRAMA and it took me forever to get out of there. My first tactic was to stop lying down with him to read. I sat up instead. And then I made the drink of water deal with him. Finally, I had to just deal with two nights of crying and throwing a fit - I would keep putting him in bed and then leaving the room. He only cried for about 30 minutes the first night, 20 minutes the second, and none the next.

Bedtime routine for Joel, 17 months old, is to read a book in his room, rock in the glider for about 5 minutes and then lay him down in the crib awake. He talks to himself for awhile and then falls asleep. We "cried it out" with him around 4 months old and have been on this routine ever since.

2. What made you decide to promote your child out of a crib into a toddler bed? How did you guys go about doing that and getting them to stay in the bed?

I also promoted Samuel out of the crib b/c I needed it for Baby #2. We put a twin mattress on the floor in Samuel's room before Joel was born (he was about 17 months). We didn't ask him to sleep in it, we just wanted it to be there and have him get used to the idea. Eventually we asked him if he wanted to take his nap in it and he did (around 19 months). It went great. Over a period of two weeks we gave him the option of sleeping in his crib or his bed. He was about 50/50 in choosing. Then we moved to our new house and he had his new room with his big boy bed (he was 22 months). He slept in it fine and we've never looked back.

Now, as far as staying in bed - We didn't make it a rule that Samuel couldn't get out of bed on his own. When he is done sleeping, he gets out of bed and leaves his room - he can reach the door handle and open it himself. He comes downstairs by himself and finds me. He also gets up in the early morning sometimes and comes to sleep in our bed with us. This is fine with us, so I don't force him to go back to bed. I don't worry about Samuel falling down the stairs. BUT, once we move Joel upstairs, we will put in a baby gate in the hallway so that he can't get down the stairs by himself - he's still too little to be trusted.

My decision to move Joel from crib to bed won't be motivated by Baby #3 this time (no baby #3 for us yet!). We've bought a little toddler bed for him and have just set it up in Samuel's room. We've let Joel take one nap in it, but he woke up early and freaked out a bit. We'll try again in a few weeks. We would really like to have him up in his bed in Samuel's room by the time I have my next surgery (end of October and he will be 19 months old), so that we can have the nursery converted back to a guest room for my parents. But I realize that is a double transition - to a bed and to sharing a bedroom. I'll let you know how it goes.

Ask An Author: Bedtimes

Just wondering what kind of bedtime routine you all use to get your kids around this age to go to sleep! My 2 1/2 year old refuses to lay down in her bed by herself at night and go to sleep on her own. Once she is asleep...she stays that way all night, but it is a battle every night to get her to sleep.

I do think we have gone through periods where Will was more challenging at bedtime, but we have always try to stay consistent and not let the "I needs" take over. He knows what to expect at bedtime and rarely gets anymore. We do bath, pjs, bible story, song, prayer, lights out. It only takes about 20 minutes - less if we skip bath. He gets a stuffed animal - that stays on his bed so it always available for sleep - and music. We learned really quickly not to allow more than that...several days were spent searching for his Thomas the Train to sleep with him. I didn't want him to have a dependance on multiple items for sleeping or for him to think I'd search the house, car, diaper bag, etc. for that ONE toy he HAD to have.

I would say that if you have been clear about the bedtime routine and your expectations (that she stay in the bed) then it has become a defiance issue and needs disciplining as any other issue throughout the day. I would apply whatever disciplining you normally use to her refusal to obey your instructions at bedtime as well. If you're consistent, she will likely get the message that you mean business at bedtime as well as the rest of the day.

That said, we did go through a period around age 2.5 where Will did this at naptimes. I ended up having to remove all toys and books from his room everyday for naptime. Once I realized this was a becoming a BIG problem, I camped out next to his door (he didn't know this - I didn't tell him) and was able to immediately go in and correct him when he got out of bed. I still have a monitor in his room now so I can listen for him playing instead of sleeping and its simply something I decided not to allow in our house. He may quietly sing to his music, but no toys in bed during sleep times.


What made you decide to promote your child out of a crib into a toddler bed? How did you guys go about doing that and getting them to stay in the bed?

I needed the crib for baby #2! I did not transition Will out of the crib until around his second birthday. His sister was 3 months old and needed the crib. One day, we put the toddler bed together in his room. We let him see it for a day or two and talk about how it was his new bed. The next day, he asked to nap in it and did! I just told him he was to stay in bed and not to get out unless Mommy or Daddy came to get him. I left his crib in there for another day or so but he was fine and transitioned very easily. One thing we did do was put one of those safety knob covers over his door knob. This way he could not open his door and get out by himself. (I honestly don't think he's ever tried though!) It also prevents him from locking the door from the inside.

I think a lot of times we underestimate how flexible and adaptable kids are. We assume the transitions will be hard - and sometimes just assuming that ourselves makes them harder than they have to be!

Our Sleep Journey

I have never felt comfortable with the CIO method. It truly made my stomach queasy just thinking about ACTUALLY doing it. Laney had the worst case of reflux any and everyone I knew had ever seen. It splattered all over our hardwood floors ALL-DAY-LONG, all over me, all over her, matted in my hair (that's why I eventually cut it shorter) for ONE WHOLE YEAR. Literally. I don't know how she gained a pound. She wore bibs with every outfit all day long for a year, and you never saw me without a burp cloth in hand or on shoulder. Now, knowing that, let's jump to sleep issues.

As a new Mom, I felt a lot of pressure from media, books, and even other mom-friends to try the CIO with Laney early on. That "issue" was all that was talked about amongst new moms and all that everyone asked me about, "Is she sleeping through the night yet?" I felt like that was my one and only task that I had to master and the sooner the better. I now know that many people were mainly asking if I was finally getting adequate sleep, but my mind was zoning in on this "task at hand" that my heart didn't want to face. I DID NOT want to do CIO, but felt like I was "supposed" to. I was downright delirious from a lack of sleep and dreamt of sleeping a whole night. So, despite the heart wrenching, the one time I tried to CIO method was when she was two months old. I was standing in the crack of her door, biting my finger and itching to bust in and save my girl. After a few minutes, the crying completely stopped, and I heard her choking on her reflux. It was gurgling in her throat. At that point, I DID bust through the door as fast as my feet would move, and I picked her up, held her close and decided in that moment, NO CIO for me. "Nope. I won't even entertain it until this reflux is gone," I said. So, I experienced nine loooong months of broken sleep. Was it tough? You better believe it. I was EXHAUSTED. How did I make it? God's grace. Laney did "sleep through the night" early on but the technical term "sleep through the night" means five straight hours according to the books. That is NOT sleeping through the night for me. The main reason I had to get up was to keep putting her paci back in her mouth and that's altogether a whole different issue at hand and one in which I will not delve in this post. Other times I'd be up thirty minutes to an hour, depending on if she was teething. Ouch! That takes a toll on a Mama when Baby wakes up at 6:30 or 7:00 am.

After Laney turned nine months, the reflux significantly improved about 80%. She still spit-up, but was NOTHING like it used to be the first nine months. At this point, I felt like I could entertain the idea of helping her self-soothe, but I still wasn't keen on the idea of CIO. But I tried it a day or so, and regretted every second of it. I thought to myself, "There has to be another way." I knew that when she cried during the night, she was not primarily crying from hunger or was in any pain, but mainly was crying because of her need for Mommy. I felt at that age, she really needed to know that when she cried, someone was there. "At that age" are the key words here and ones I will address in another post. Some may call this spoiling a child. I call it "consistency." I didn't want to send mixed signals, where sometimes I responded to her cry and then sometimes not, for up to hours possibly. Let me just say for the record, I believe every Mother (and every family) has her/their own convictions either way they choose, and I respect their decision. This choice was my family's personal conviction with Laney, her condition and our overall feelings toward CIO. I, in no way, am saying that those who choose to CIO with their children aren't tender-hearted or are insensitive. No way, no how. I want you to understand that I am definitely not saying that. No matter who you are, the heart of mother, whose child is CIO, breaks every second until it's over with. I respect the other POH authors and my friends for the decisions they made with their children, for every mother and every child is different. Hands down, they are all ABSOLUTELY AMAZING mothers.

I purchased the "No Cry Sleep Solution" book by Elizabeth Pantley. I firmly believe in this book and think that it will work for most children, but not all children. Babies are not cookie-cutter babies, so I don't think that one approach will hit the nail on the head every time. I used the principles from Pantley's book, combined with minimal CIO (10 minutes intervals mainly). I was ready to start helping Laney self-soothe for I was SOOOO TIRED. I would go in and reassure her that I was there and that I heard her cries. I wanted her to hear her Mama's soothing voice. I wanted to take it slowly and avoid any abrupt changes, hoping to spread it out over a span of a few weeks, possibly months.

I would lay her down, explain to her that I was leaving and that she needed to go "night-night." I would go in there every ten minutes to pick her up in the beginning and hug her. Then that evolved to going in only rubbing her back and reassuring her. I slowly pulled myself away. Then I just opened the door of her room and stood at the door. A few times I built up to 15 minutes,but mainly stuck to every 5-10 minutes. She would be very upset, and it absolutely broke my heart. Generally, I didn't let the crying go past thirty minutes in one sleep-training session. This was an area that needed addressing, and I was willing to work with her in this slowly, but I didn't want to turn her world upside-down and cause lots of anxiety and panic in her little world if I could try another way. I don't remember EXACTLY how long it took for Laney to sleep through the night, but I do remember it happening fairly quickly at night and the area of naps was where I camped out for a few weeks. By one year, Laney was QUITE the sleeper and a heavy sleeper at that. I could (and still can) go in her room to change her diaper or her pj's (if her diaper leaks or something) and she either not wake up at all or barely wake up in such a daze that all she cares about is getting back to sleep. My daughter's nap time at 22 months is three hours long. Praise the Lord!!

Here's Laney's schedule:

Wakes 7:00-7:30
Naps 1:00-4:00
Nighttime 7:00-7:30 (usually 7:30 nowadays)

So, in my closing thoughts, I want to encourage the new mother that no, you don't HAVE to use the CIO method. You're NOT a weakling for deciding not to CIO. You have motherly instincts that the Lord gave you and you alone, and you have the option to yield to them should you feel the need. Now, you have to be okay with the consequences of not doing the CIO and that's being tired all the time, take naps a lot and have a messy house. Ha! :)

Now stay tuned for another post from me continuing my point concerning "at that age" and why, looking back, I am happy that I chose the route that I did after reading Dr. Sears' book "The Successful Child."

Sleep at Leah's House

Hi! First off, let me apologize for being completely MIA the past two weeks. We are re-doing our basement because of the flood damage a few weekends ago. In the middle of that, we decided to go ahead and re-do the bathroom, too. Go figure! I have been painting like a mad woman each evening after putting the boys to bed. And there, is where this post is heading - sleep!

The first time we covered this topic, my son Samuel was 15 months old and I was 4 months pregnant with my son Joel. You can read my post here. I actually had to go back and read what I wrote to see if I still agreed with it! Now that I've sleep-trained two boys, I think I still agree with most of what I said.

Like Christina, I have two different sleepers. Although I didn't do any sleep training with Samuel in the beginning, he was a good eater/sleeper and worked himself into a pretty good routine that lasted for about 8 months. We endured about 4 months of sleep problems before we finally "Cried It Out" at 13 months old. After three days he was napping twice a day and sleeping 13 hours at night without any crying. He is just a good sleeper.

Enter Joel. Oh, Joel. I think he pretty much ate, slept in my arms/next to me, or cried for the first 4 months of his life. He is not a natural born sleeper. He also had a lot working against him. We moved when he was 2 1/2 months old and we didn't have a crib for him for another month, so he was sleeping in bed with me. I took a bad sleeper and really did him in. He enjoyed sleeping at night with me because he nursed the ENTIRE time. No joke. I, on the other hand, was going completely insane because I was getting NO sleep. Now, I am a super-duper pro-breastfeeding person. BUT, I am definitely not one of those people who thinks co-sleeping and nursing all night long is convenient because I HATE nursing for a long time. I can't explain it, but it makes my skin crawl! :) (Are all my La Leche League friends dying right now?). We were in a bind, though, and he was stuck in bed with us for that month.

We finally got the boys room set up and we were now faced with a double task: 1) Put Samuel to bed in his Big Boy Bed (a twin mattress on the floor with a bed rail) and 2) Put Joel to bed in his crib. Here's how we tackled both.

1) Putting a 23 month old in a Big Boy Bed. This is the easy one. We had the bed set up in his room and the crib. We said he was going to start sleeping in his Big Boy Bed. We laid him down for naps and betime and he went to sleep and that was it. Two times he asked to sleep in his crib and we let him. But then he was back in the Big Boy Bed. He stays in it for naps and all through the night. When he gets up in the morning, he comes out of his room and comes into our room to get me up. I don't have any real advice here except to say - just try it, you may be surprised. I was so nervous after hearing other people, but it was no big deal for us.

2) Switching Joel from co-sleeping to independent sleeping. Ugh. I'll be honest, this was a battle. At four months, I talked it over with my pediatrician and she gave me the green light to Cry It Out with Joel. She assured me that he was physiologically able to make it 11-12 hours at night without eating. But she also warned me that we had a real fight on our hands because Joel is just not a good sleeper. We said, though, that we were going to fight this battle one way or another and it was better to do it now than to let him establish 6-8-10-12 months of bad sleep habits. I started working on his nighttime sleep, and waited to work on naps until he had gotten nighttime sleep down. The first night he cried for over two hours and I finally broke down and went and got him. I couldn't take it. I called the doctor the next day and assured her that this wasn't going to work. She assured me it would. She told me to take the night off and try again the following night. I did that and he cried for 30 minutes, slept for an hour, cried for 20 minutes, slept for 3 hours, I fed him, he cried for 10 minutes and then slept for 4 hours. I fed him again and he slept for another 2 hours. The next morning I said to Ed, I think I'm supposed to make him go all night long without feeding him. So we did that. He went down at 7:45, cried for 45 minutes, slept 5 hours, cried for 15 minutes, and then slept until 6 am. I fed him and he slept another 2 hours. We've battled back and forth since then for bedtime. He now goes down to sleep at 6:15/6:30 and sleeps until 5:30/6:00. He cries for 20 minutes max about 4 nights a week. At 7 months he is still working on napping consistently. I lay him down at 9:30am and 2:30pm. Sometimes he goes to sleep, sometimes it takes 10-20 minutes of crying and sometimes he cries for a full hour before I go and get him (1 hour is my max for naptimes). I am a strong believer now, though, in consistent sleep and so I continue to try to get him to nap each day. I know that he needs the sleep.

I agree with everything Christina wrote and with Meagan's comment. Children need sleep. Just because your child "doesn't nap" during the day doesn't mean that s/he doesn't need sleep. It means they need help learning how to sleep on their own. And an early bedtime is such a great thing. Yikes! I just realized how long this post is - sorry!

For those of you who just scrolled to the bottom, here's my boys' sleep schedules in a nutshell:

6:30pm - Joel (7 months old) to bed
7:30pm - Samuel (2 years old) to bed
6:00am - Joel wakes, eats, and goes back to bed
6:45am-ish - Samuel wakes
7:30am-ish - Joel wakes
9:30am to 11:30am - Joel naps
1:00pm to 3:30pm (often later!) - Samuel naps
2:30pm to 3:30pm - Joel naps (we're working on this one right now - should be longer)

Last thing, I swear. My boys share a room. I put Joel to bed first at night so he can cry if he needs to. Then I come in and put Samuel in his bed. If Joel cries in the night, I let him. I also come in and nurse Joel in their room in the morning. Samuel sleeps through it. We are working on room sharing during naps. But it can be done - your children can share a bedroom. Okay, that's it, I swear!

Dealing with Sleep Issues

Sleep is one of the most stressful parts of being a parent. I truly think that sleep is so important to a child's development. Giving your baby (and your big kid too!) plenty of sleep is just as important as giving them plenty of food. So much about sleep is counter-intuitive and many parents find themselves not able to figure out how to get their baby to sleep!

You can find my first post on sleep issues and routines here. I can't speak highly enough for the book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. That post gives my thoughts on the book. Many of which will probably be repeated here.

All of my thoughts on sleep and sleep issues were completely challenged when Adeline came along. From the first night home, it became clear she was not going to be an easy sleeper like Will. Don't misread that to mean she needs less sleep. She needs just as much, if not more, sleep than Will did as a baby.



The difference is that Adeline was colicky (just extremely fussy). She proved the "six week peak" theory as described in Healthy Sleep Habits. Basically, Dr. Weisbluth says that most babies' fussiness will peak at around six weeks of age and gradually get better from there. Boy did it peak! Adeline also met his criteria for being colicky. For at least six weeks, we spent every evening from 6pm (on the dot!) to at least 11pm intensely soothing Adeline to prevent crying. Sometimes it didn't work and we had to endure the screams. Sometimes it did, as long as we kept up the soothing efforts. To say she was high maintenance would be an understatement.

Dr. Weisbluth also warned that colicky babies may have a more difficult time learning sleep patterns and good naps. This is precisely why she fell asleep and napped in her car seat on the dryer, with it running, for at least 5 months. (At least my laundry was always done!) Around 5 months, we decided to let her cry it out for bedtime. It took a while, but finally she learned to fall asleep on her own. During that time, she still napped on the dryer as it seems bedtime habits develop before consistent naps do. Eventually she started napping in the crib.



Now at 7 months, she finally goes to sleep and naps with little to no crying. She is still more sensitive to changes in her sleep. For example, last night she went down about a half hour too late and spent about thirty minutes crying because of it. Her sleep schedule is naps from 9-11 and 1-4, bed at 6:30 and awake around 7am.

I wrote my first sleep post when Will was 17 months old. Since then, we've dealt with the following:

• Getting rid of the pacifier
• Dropping morning nap
  
• Transition to a toddler bed
• Addition of a new sister

Some have been more successful with than others. All had some affect on Will's sleep patterns. None were completely disastrous, in part because he started as a good sleeper and one who had a predictable routine. Naps and sleep times have been one area that I've been very protective over. We've spent many nights in while one or both of our kids needed a 6pm bedtime. I can remember times when Will needed a 5:30 bedtime. And yes, he slept until 7am or later.

Myth: The earlier to bed, the earlier they will rise. Truth is, sleep begets sleep. The more well rested they are, the more they will sleep. And a happy child will be the result!

When we dropped the paci, I went cold turkey. He was only using them in his crib at sleep times, but I'm not sure I would do it this way again. The good news is that I won't have to because Adeline has never taken to a pacifier, despite my GREAT EFFORTS. She prefers her thumb. Loosing the paci seemed to hurt naps more than night sleep. But after about a week, he was back to normal! One thing I would do is take the paci away earlier. He was far less attached to that paci around 12 months versus 19 months when we got rid of it.

Dropping the morning nap simply meant a slightly earlier afternoon nap time and an earlier bedtime for a while. As I've written before, we transitioned that nap time to a morning quiet time that he still does now.



The transition to the toddler bed was most detrimental to naps. He had the freedom to play more and has missed several naps completely since getting the big boy bed in July. He had just turned two when we went to the toddler bed and at first it went smoothly. But the novelty soon wore off and he learned to exercise his new freedoms. It took a few months, but he mostly naps well now. If he doesn't nap well, then that means an earlier bedtime for sure!

There is my rundown of our sleep issues for the past year or so! How have you dealt with sleep issues in your house?