Sisters

My sister's Missa (middle), Bekah (right) and I

I have two older sisters who each have one son. When Austin (my oldest nephew) was born my sister Missa was just about twenty-two years old. She read some parenting books. She let my nephew cry for ten minutes each night and went in and checked on him and put him back. By the time he was four months old he was almost sleeping through the night. When my nephew Elijah was born my sister Bekah didn't read any parenting books. She co-slept with Eli until she got married when Eli was five. Eli never slept through the night until she weaned him from nursing at two years old. When Hannah was born. I read some pregnancy books and two sleep books the first was The Baby Whisperer, the second was No Cry Sleep Solution. In the end Hannh co-slept with us for over nine months. None of the suggestions in either books helped Hannah sleep throught the night until I read and followed Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.

I'm not suggesting that The Baby Whisperer and No Cry Sleep Solution books are a crock. I think that they just don't work for every baby. I cannot tell you how many times I put Hannah in her crib and picked her up again when she cried and then put her back down. I do know that that would work for some babies. It just didn't work for our babies.

My Obsession

Since before Noah was born I have been obsessed with sleep. I don't sleep well when I'm pregnant. Having a newborn doesn't make sleep come any easier. After parenting Hannah I had no illusions that I wouldn't be co-sleeping with this baby in order to gain a couple of extra winks of sleep.

Noah had completely different sleep issues than Hannah, but sleep issues all the same. He had reflux so badly he couldn't sleep laying down he had to be vertical. He slept on my chest for the first 7 weeks of his life. I could put him down occasionally to sleep but at night we slept on the couch or recliner. His reflux disappeared after I cut dairy and eggs out of my diet completely. The only problem was that he was accustomed to sleeping on me. Ever so slowly we trained him to sleep in the swing during the day then at night he would sleep with us in our bed. Thus my obsession grew. I started reading every book about sleep I could get my hands on: No Cry Sleep Solution, Baby Whisperer, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, and Sleeping Through the Night. I devised a plan that we would follow to help our child sleep through the night. I talked and talked and talked about what we should do and when we should do it with my husband Robert. And then after having a couple of weeks of poor sleep and seeing Noah progressively become a worse sleeper I decided I'd had enough the time had come to allow Noah to learn to fall asleep on his own so that he could soothe himself back to sleep instead of waking me up every other hour to do it for him.

After Noah's first Nap when he showed signs of tiredness I did our normal sleep routine: swaddle, bounce on exercise ball until eyes droop and then put him down awake in his crib. He cried. I wanted to cry too but I couldn't allow myself to cry since I was caring for Hannah. I tried not to watch the clock too much and only looked at it every five minutes instead of every minute. I prayed. I ran my fingers through my hair. My stomach was in knots. Two hours after his first yelps he fell asleep. He only slept 45 minutes. I then scrapped the cry it out during naps plan and reread all the pertinent parts of the cry-it-out books. And decided to do what they suggested to do and cry it out at bed time. The next night Noah only cried for an hour and ten minutes. Night two he cried for one hour. Night three he cried for twenty minutes. And I truly believe that he'd cry less if he were getting better naps during the day but we didn't want to cry it out all at once for every sleep period. So now the plan is to wait three more nights (after Hannah's birthday) and then start putting him in the crib for every nap.

We waited much longer to allow Hannah to learn to sleep on her own and it was much more traumatic with her. However we know that once they can fall asleep on their own everyone sleep much better.

This is a journal entry from December 29, 2006. Hannah had just been sleep trained and I was recounting what it had been like to put her to sleep. This is where Noah was heading and where I didn't want to end up.

I laid in our bed for countless hours trying to lull her to sleep. It became evident that I was becoming the human punching, pinching, scratching, kicking bag for our daughter. I started to not be able to sleep. Here's an example of a typical 24 hour period trying to get Hannah to sleep:
7:30am wakeup and breast feed
11:30am lay with Hannah for 15 min to sleep
11:45- 1pm Hannah sleeps
4pm lay with Hannah while rolls, scratches, kicks, and talks
4:30-5:10pm Hannah sleeps. I cannot move or she'll wake up
8:30pm Hannah obviously tired, breast feeds looks sleepy but then as soon as she is done she gets a burst of energy and thus commences the kicking, squealing, pinching, clawing of Mommy
9:15pm Hannah finally asleep. Mommy sneaks away from the bed. Hannah grabs for Mommy. Mommy stays in bed wide awake
9:35pm Mommy finally sneaks away to spend time with Daddy
10pm Hannah wakes and cries for Mommy. Mommy comes back in and breast feeds Hannah until she is asleep and decides to stay and sleep herself. But she can't So Mommy lies awake until Hannah wakes up again at 11:30pm to feed. Then Mommy finally drifts to sleep somewhere around midnight.
1am Hannah wakes to breast feed
2:30am Hannah wakes to breast feed
3:30am Hannah wakes. Mommy tries to breast feed her to sleep. Hannah wants to play. Mommy tries to sleep while Hannah kicks her.
4:15am Hannah falls asleeps.
5am Hannah wakes to breast feed
7am Hannah wakes for the day full of milk and not wanting to breast feed. Mommy is exhausted.

Teeth rule my life

About ten years ago while I was studying Spanish in Argentina I was in the comedor (cafeteria) eating granola for dinner and I bit into a tiny rock that happened to make it into my granola and broke off a piece one of my molars.

Luckily for me I had dental insurance through the school. Unluckily for me, the dentist, whom I mistook for a dental assistant (I guess they don't have assistants in Argentina) found close to a dozen cavities. She asked me if I had been gravely ill recently to which I replied no. When in fact I hadn't had my period from the time I had stepped on the airplane to fly down to South America but that's a very long story for another day. So the young dental assistant filled my cavities over numerous visits and I was on my way.

Fast forward to a week after our youngest child was born.

My husband had gone to the dentist to have a crown replaced and had been suffering from some pain with his temporary crown. A couple of days later I suddenly had a pain around my jaw area. I thought maybe I'd been clenching my teeth too much at night. Then after a couple of days I realized it was probably one of my molars that hurt. Thus beginning my never ending journey to the dentist. It turns out that I had a dead tooth with an infection. Now I had heard the saying A tooth for every child from my Yugoslavian mother-in-law who has full upper dentures. I never thought that would actually come to fruition in my life. Today I have four crowns and will soon have too root canals. I really dislike the dentist.

As a little end note. Our little, not even four month old, Noah has been gumming the heck out of his fists ever since he could control his arms enough to get them up to his mouth. A couple of weeks back he started sleeping really poorly and not wanting to nurse. I was in complete denial that he would be getting his first teeth because Hannah didn't start acting this way until she was seven months old. I looked and saw that there were some roots. Just two days ago one of his teeth broke through his gums enough that I could feel it with my finger. How can my baby be growing so quickly?

First

I've always got so much to say. I'm going to write down some of the things that are flying around in my head from day to day. Most of it will be about my little family and our day to day lives.

We are a family of four. A husband and wife with two little ones. A girl and a boy. What a lot of people would call a 'perfect family'. We are far from perfect.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about our little Noah. He is four months old and really doesn't do much but sleep, eat, complain about his first tooth that is just about to pop through his gums and well, lay around a lot. Noah is not a great sleeper. His older sister wasn't a great sleeper. We let her continue to be a poor sleeper until one day I finally had had enough. And we let her cry herself to sleep. It was one of the worst things I have ever had to do as a parent.

A year ago we found out we were pregnant with Noah. The first thing I felt was excitement and then a creeping feeling came from the depths of my mind and reminded me that I was going to have to 'Cry it out' with this new child. I had hoped that we wouldn't have to do it, but my hopes were dashed.

For the past three days we have put Noah to sleep in his crib and allowed him to fall asleep on his own. He has cried a lot. A whole lot.

I'm sorry Noah for leaving you in there alone. I love you and I know that you can sleep on your own. I wish it didn't have to be this way. Luckily you'll never remember... but I will.

This blog about rewriting Sarah.