In the end
FYI, Dr. Hull’s method was a bust for us. We returned the DVD.
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted to this blog. I’m sorry. I simply was too exhausted for too long and when I finally had energy, I felt so far behind on everything we tried to play catch up.
Sometime around November, near Thanksgiving, we realized that our son is lactose intolerant. It makes him gassy and constipated and is probably a major reason he never slept well. After moving him to soy milk, things got better. He didn’t start sleeping through the night instantly, but he did seem to sleep a little more than he used to. He might have just been growing out of his restless sleep and it was just a coincidence, but if you’re using formula, it might be worth a shot to switch to a soy based formula for a can or two, especially if your doctor thinks it’s OK. Of course, switching can bring about it’s own frustrations, but you never know and it might be worth a shot.
The truth is, we never got The Boy to sleep through the night. He regularly wakes up after being down for about 1.5-2 hours initially and then, thanks to our final decisions, sleeps through the rest of the night.
But, let me cover one technique we used before we got to our final decisions. We discovered that my “best sleep” is in the early morning from about 2am to 6am. My wife’s best sleep is in the beginning of the night from about 10pm to 2am. We split the night as best we could and it helped a lot to get the sleep when your body wants it most. I worked out well for us, but I’m sure this won’t work for everyone. However, one of the techniques we used was to “protect each other’s sleep.” We set up a extra twin mattress we had on the floor of our bonus room, two floors away from our master bedroom. If The Boy was having a restless night, we’d bring him to the bonus room and settle him and get him back to sleep on the twin mattress. We’d let him sleep for 20-30 minutes, really get into a deep sleep and then bring him back to his room. While we waited, we surfed the net and, generally, killed time on the computer in the bonus room.
This was still exhausting, but it did help us both have more energy since we got a better quality sleep and both of us got about a 4 hour chunk, at least, every night. That helped *a lot.*
After some discussion about what all the books say and what we felt in our guts we ended up on this: Let’s just bring him into our bed and have him sleep with us. At the end of the day, we’ll get more sleep. It’s true. We did. When he wakes up, we don’t have to get up to console him. Many times, he’ll wake up, see us sleeping and lie back down and go back to sleep on his own. Our own sleep cycles we’re disturbed a whole lot less. And that, ultimately, helped us be better parents and, generally, more functional people.
We figured that, in the end, all he wanted was to know mommy and daddy were near. I think it’s hard for any parent to deny their child that. For those who got the cry-it-out method to work, congrats. For us, getting sleep today was more important than “teaching good sleep habits.” We figured that as The Boy gets older, we’ll be able talk him out of sleeping with us. There are many more books on how to modify a child’s behavior and the ability to actually gauge progress… unlike, it seems, with a sleepless baby.
One thing that should be noted: As The Boy got older and bigger (he’s now almost 2 and we probably started this around 15 months old), he enjoyed sleeping horizontally. This didn’t work well in our bed, so we grabbed that spare twin mattress we had and made room in our bedroom for it on the floor. We already knew he slept well there and he could still see us from it. It only took about a week of picking him up from the side of our bed before he just stayed on his twin mattress.
So, here’s the sleep schedule:
7:30-8pm – Goes to sleep in his crib
9:30-10pm – Wakes up, gets moved to his twin mattress in our bedroom
5:30am – Wakes up and asks for food and milk
Since we go to bed @ 10pm, this works pretty well. There is always the occasional bad night, but generally, we’re getting good sleep now.
So, specifically to Jeremy, I feel for you. If it were me with what I’ve learned, I’d separate the boys. Let the one who sleeps sleep in his crib. Let the one who’s “feet are on fire” sleep with us, probably snuggled with mom for a while. After 20-30 minutes, depending on how brave you are, you might consider moving him back to his crib. You might consider moving a crib into your room… we would have, but it’s too big for the doorways and would have required disassembly and reassembly and I wasn’t willing. For you, it has the added bonus of only one of them waking up at a time. You can always put them back in the same room once they’re both sleeping better.
For everyone struggling with a sleepless baby, remember that they get older everyday. And, everyday, they get a little closer to sleeping through the night all on their own. The time really will seem like it went by in the blink of an eye when you look back on it, but I know it feels like it’s taking forever when you’re in the middle of it. My only advice is to eat well, catch some spare zzz’s when you can (you *can* catch up on sleep), and power through the rest of it. Try to agree to protect each others’ sleep and you’ll find some camaraderie and, really, that can only help a marriage.
I’ve got at keast one more post I’ll send up in a few days. For now, good luck and go with what works to get everyone in the house more sleep. Ignore the books and what they say is good. You won’t ruin your kid by letting him sleep with you or letting him cry it out. “Whatever works”… because you all need sleep and the more you get, the happier a family you’ll be… and *THAT’s* the most important thing.
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