Update on the revolution

The sleep revolution continues in my house. I have to say, it is really going quite well. (And, may I say, FINALLY!)

Naps have a fairly regular pattern. Morning nap is somewhere in the vicinity of 9am (though it’s often closer to 8:30 when they wake up early). Rebecca usually sleeps about an hour to an hour and a half. Daniel has gone over two hours several times this week. Wohoo! Afternoon nap starts anywhere between 12 and 2, usually around 12:30. That one is usually not as long, but we are finally getting away from the automatic 45-minutes-and-done that I was seeing recently. Then, the general rule of thumb is that, if the afternoon nap ends before 3pm, there is most likely going to be a 3rd short nap between 4:30 and 5:00. If they make it all the way past 5pm in good spirits, I skip it and just keep them up until bedtime. Naps are un-swaddled (omg, hooray!). I generally give them a small bottle before I bring them upstairs to bed. It helps them slow/calm down, and helps ensure they won’t wake up hungry in 30 minutes. I’d like to try to shift my schedule so that their regular bottles just happen to be before naptime, but I’m not there yet. If they fuss at nap time, and Daniel often does, I do the same kind of progressive intervals of checking that I did during nighttime sleep. Most of the time, they’re both out like a light in under 10 minutes, usually under 5 minutes. But sometimes, not as much. I let them try to sort things out for about an hour before I declare that naptime officially done. They’re never crying that whole time. But sometimes they just kind of fuss off and on and refuse to go to sleep. Ah well, you can’t win ‘em all.

The overnight revolution is going quite well indeed. Bedtime usually starts (with bathtime) around 6:30 or 6:45. We do bath, then PJs and sleep sack. Upstairs to the nursery for a bedtime bottle, and when they’re done eating, they are put in bed, given a pacifier or a light knit blanket to snuggle with. We read a story, then lights out. All usually done by 7:15 or so. For the most part, they go down within minutes, no crying at all. Tonight was a bit of an exception, but they were exhausted from a bad nap day (my fault). And then, here’s the best part, they sleep until 5:45, even 6:15 in the morning!!! Holy cow, it’s awesome.

They aren’t necessarily totally silent the whole night. Sometimes one or the other will wake up and cry out a little for a few minutes. Rebecca was up and unhappy for a solid half hour the other night. But we generally wait a few minutes to see if they’re “really” awake and upset. Then we will go in and check periodically to make sure they aren’t stuck in a funny position or otherwise in some kind of distress. But otherwise, once we’ve made sure they’re OK, we just let them work it out. And you know what? They do!

I have also maintained my “rule” that we don’t start the morning until 6am or later. So if they wake up at 5am, I let them work it out in much the same manner. Admittedly, when they wake up at 5am, the likelihood is that they’re just plain awake and will not be going back to sleep. And yes, I know that they can’t tell time. But I think it’s important to be consistent as far as when we really start the day, and hopefully that will help train their internal clocks.

I definitely declare the revolution and project Ferber a success. With the good results, there’s a part of me that says “I should have done this ages ago!” But, in truth, I don’t know whether or not the kids would have been ready. I’m not sure I would have been ready, either. But last week? Oh, I was ready. I was frustrated and fed-up with the hoops I was having to jump through to get them to sleep, but I also realized I was perpetuating them. I had, in a very small way, “hit bottom” on that particular issue. I was ready to make the change, and I also believed in what I was doing and why I was doing it. It was not, by any stretch, the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Not for the faint of heart. But for us? So worth it.