sleep update

I wanted to thank each and every one of you for your kind comments and emails full of advice with regards to this post a few weeks ago.  After reading each tidbit of advice and personal account I decided it was nothing short of insanity to expect a lovely little routine with such young ones.  Instead, we decided to focus on routine check points throughout our day especially with our night time routine.

So our mornings and days are still a crazy stew of good and bad things, but our nights have a little more structure.  And though we haven't mastered the punctual bedtime, we have been sticking to the following routine fairly well.  {Note: there is a difference between schedule and routine.  We do the same thing with the same end just not at the same time every day.}

• Bath
• Jammies
• Brush Teeth
• Mike reads to Poppy in her bed while I nurse Silas to sleep
• We then move him into the crib in our room
• We then switch and I lay with Poppy until she falls asleep 
• Silas sleeps about 3 to 4 hours in the crib and then we move him into our bed so I can nurse him back to sleep
• Poppy usually will sleep through the night, but either wakes up at 5am and calls for me (not at all upset) and I tuck her back in and rub her back until she goes back to sleep.
• Silas has been waking about 2 to 3 times per night since we implemented this and is sleeping in a little later in the mornings which is nice.

So yes, it wasn't perfect, but it was a start and we felt a little more in control.  That being said, something changed.  Poppy has napped for the past three afternoons and it has thrown our little routine for a loop.   It is difficult enough to get Poppy to sleep before 9pm without a nap.  As much as I revel in the quiet of the simultaneous nap time, I know I will pay dearly for it later.  Silas hasn't been falling asleep as I nurse him, and they have been bouncing off the walls until we all fall asleep in an exhausted heap in our bed at 11 pm or later.  I then wake Mike up and we move them to their beds.

With all of this, Silas has been waking his usual 5 times per night again.   Let me first tell you that I don't have an issue with "parenting" my kids to sleep.  What makes me crazy is the constant night waking that seems to be getting worse rather than better at 11 months of age.  No matter what we do, Silas howls and cries unless I nurse him back to sleep.  We pat, sway, sling, sing, rock, dance, and hold him in a attempt to get him back to sleep, but he just pushes our hands away and continues to wail and flop around.  He won't take a soother.  Last night, after finally getting him to sleep at 11pm, he woke up not even an hour later.  We brought him into our bed and let him cry.  We have never done the cry it out method and don't want to resort to it, but if we ever want to sleep through the night again, something has to change.  So we let him flail and scream between us while we rubbed his back and after 10 minutes he went from a full blown cry to a deep sleep.  He woke two more times in the night and I nursed him back to sleep both times.

The only thing we can think of or that we have read is that he is in the habit of nursing and knows that if he wakes up, I will be there with his comfort.  Our plan is to do as we did last night and let him cry in our arms until he goes back to sleep.  A sort of controlled cry it out.  Our hope is that he will realize he doesn't get to nurse every time he wakes up and will, in turn, begin to sleep for longer periods of time.

Parenting is tough.  It's even tougher when you lack deep, restorative, patience-giving sleep.

go gently + be wonderful


e.