Overnight | Goddess in Progress

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The one-armed baby did it

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (1)· January 18th, 2008

Yesterday morning, when Daniel woke himself up at 5:30am fighting to get out of his swaddle, I decided it’s really time to bite the bullet. This is where we were, two months ago, when I learned the uber-swaddle. As nighttime wore on and his blanket inevitably loosened, he’d start wriggling around, waking himself up as he tried to free an arm or two. I learned about the baby straightjacket swaddle and it bought me two more months, but now it’s really time to be done. They’re too big (well, Daniel is, but Rebecca should be done, too).

So I decided to take the advice of the nice folks who commented after my attempts at going cold-turkey went so badly. I was skeptical about the one-arm-free method, as I feared it would only make Daniel more frustrated that he couldn’t have the other one. But it was totally worth a try, and I committed to trying all naps yesterday with a free arm. If it was a nightmare, we could revert back for bedtime. Anything other than a train wreck would be considered a success.

I’m happy to report that it actually went pretty well! Naps were, if not stellar, no worse than they’ve been recently. Bedtime was not bad at all. Daniel took a little extra time to fall asleep, but was calm and took his pacifier (another issue we’ve had recently). Rebecca woke up a few extra times overnight, but was easily calmed with a pacifier and a finger for that wild hand to grab. Daniel only woke up once, even! At 2:30am, after being put down at 7pm! Not too shabby. Today’s naps are kind of crappy, but that has more to do with the fact that we were out of the house and it threw things off (totally worth it to socialize!). And, more to the point, the free arm does not seem to be getting in the way of sleep much, except for when Rebecca accidentally yanks out her own pacifier.

Could the end of the swaddle truly be within reach? Could my children finally learn to just go to sleep? Tune in next time for more tales of the blanket…

Comments (1)

Categories : Infants, Sleep

Tags : Naps, Overnight, Swaddling

All night long

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (6)· December 17th, 2007

Of all the milestones my kids will reach in their first years of life, one I’m looking very much forward to is the fabled “sleeping through the night.” As is the case with many milestones, sleep in particular seems to have a huge range in terms of when this would actually happen. Unlike things such as sitting up, which is a clear “you are or you aren’t” kind of thing, “sleeping through the night” has an enormous gray area. What is “through the night,” anyways?

Let’s start with some less debatable parameters. I once had someone try to tell me that her baby started sleeping through the night at 3 weeks old. I was beside myself. Well, upon pressing for further details, she said “well, I mean, she still eats three times, but she’s not really awake.” OK, I’m sorry. That doesn’t count as sleeping through the night. Does that sound like pretty good sleep for a 3-week-old? Absolutely! Lots of babies don’t differentiate between night and day that early, and are frequently wide awake at various points in the middle of the night. But if you, the parent, must get up and feed or otherwise tend to the baby, I would argue that it does not count as sleeping through the night.

The really gray area, in my mind, concerns the definition of “night.” It depends on when you put the baby to bed, first of all. I’m more of a Weissbluth devotee, so baby bedtime in my house is early, generally between 6 and 7pm. Already, I’m thinking something very different from someone who puts their baby to bed at 8 or even 10pm. Second of all, I’ve talked to many people who say their babies wake up only once per night, and come to find out that really means they really eat at 10pm (when mom & dad are still up), and then wake up “once” at like 3am. So people who are in that frame of mind would consider “sleeping through the night” to be “sleeping while mom & dad sleep.” And they say baby is sleeping through when they drop the 3am, but are still getting up/eating at 10 or 11pm. Again, I think this is excellent progress, and I can’t wait for it to be the norm in my house. But by my standards, 10pm and 3am equals getting up twice.

I suppose I’ve set my bar for “sleeping through” somewhat high. I won’t call it that until they go down at 6-7pm and wake up at a reasonable morning hour. (OK, right now Daniel thinks 5:30am is a reasonable morning hour, but sometimes I get lucky and it’s more like 6:30-7am.) So, to me, “sleeping through the night” means around 12 straight hours of sleep for baby. I know this is possible. I know it’s actually quite good for them. But I know I won’t be all the way there for some time yet. For now, both kids are generally waking up around 11 and 3, though Daniel had a stretch last month of only waking up once, and Rebecca has managed a single bottle the last couple of nights.

Believe me, I’d be psyched if we were consistently down to one wakeup at 11pm-ish, and then asleep until 6am. That would positively rock my world. I’m thinking about trying to wean them off of the 3am bottle after the holidays, when things settle down. So far, we really haven’t taken a particularly active role in getting them to sleep through, aside from the bedtime routine and feeding them in place overnight. But the time is coming. I don’t think they’re ready to meet Dr. Ferber just yet, so I’m going to start by gradually decreasing how much I put in the 3am bottle in the hopes they’ll get used to taking less and less, and then just won’t get up for it. We’ll see.

Oh, and if your four-month-old is sleeping through the night even by my standards? I’m beyond jealous.

Comments (6)

Categories : Infants, Sleep

Tags : Ferber, Overnight, sleeping through the night, Weissbluth

Mommy brain

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (0)· November 24th, 2007

Um, yeah. I’m an idiot. Ignore that last post. Kinda forgot Daniel woke up and ate at midnight last night. Ah well. Still, the consistent once-a-night is pretty excellent.

*insert sheepish smile here*

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Categories : Infants, Sleep

Tags : NaBloPoMo, Overnight

Yipee!

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (2)· November 24th, 2007

Something wonderful happened.

We put Daniel to bed at about 6:15 last night. He was out like a light by 6:30.

He woke up at 5:30 this morning.

HE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!

Sure, Rebecca woke up twice (midnight and 3:45), but still. Daniel slept through, and with no particular intervention on our part. Three cheers for bathtime, bedtime bottle, and the turbo swaddle. Last night was also the first time we read Goodnight Moon together… that will have to become a new part of the routine.

And better still, he woke up happy as a clam. I know this might not be the “regular” routine yet, but it’s an excellent step.

Comments (2)

Categories : Infants, Sleep

Tags : NaBloPoMo, Overnight

Development

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (0)· November 23rd, 2007

As this blog is, in large part, a documentation of my kids’ lives, I feel like it’s a good time to pause and make note of what they’re up to development-wise. I’m trying to take the middle-ground as far as stressing about milestones is concerned. I actually had to stop reading some of the weekly emails I was getting, saying what my baby “should” be doing, because I would freak out if they weren’t doing it. But while I don’t want to get stressed in that way, I also don’t 100% buy into the idea that my kids should be looked at by their “adjusted” age. I mean, they were 36 weeks, not 28. That said, having the lens of “adjusted” age available to me, it sort of mentally makes me allow for a nice broad range of development.

Anyways, enough disclaimers regarding how I feel about it. The short version is I feel just fine. Here’s what they’re up to, 10 days shy of their four-month birthday.

Gross Motor
Rebecca is taking advantage of having less body weight to move around. She’s pretty good at tummy time, and has accidentally flipped herself onto her back when her hands are positioned just so under her chin. Head control is pretty decent, and she’s getting close to rolling over. Just this afternoon she had herself all the way on her side. All she needs to do is bring that top leg over and she’ll be there.
Daniel has good head control, though does sometimes give you a solid head-butt to the teeth. He’s pretty good at tummy time when we use the Boppy, but when he’s flat on the floor, he’s developed a strange new habit. Even when I put his hands under his chin to help him push up, he immediately throws them out to the side, chest on the floor, face smooshed on the mat, screaming. Weird. He sometimes makes his whole body very rigid and doesn’t want to bend at the waist at all, but sometimes he just loves sitting with me on the floor or the couch.

Fine Motor
Rebecca has really started grabbing at the new links I bought that hang from the play mat. She watches them, bats at them, grabs them, and tracks with her eyes as her hands move them around. She’s quite good at sucking on her hand, though sometimes she jams the whole fist too far into her mouth and gags a little. Oops.
Daniel prefers to grab his sister’s ear when they’re both on the mat. If she hadn’t been crying in distress, I would have taken a picture. He also grabs hair, necklaces, and sometimes your lip. Less interest in the links. He’s also getting very good at sucking on his hand. Just a bit more control and maybe I’ll start to consider unswaddling him when he sleeps.

Social
Rebecca is a super smiler. She’s got a really great smile and is pretty free with it. It’s just too funny when you catch her in a smiley mood and you can play with her. Tickling, tapping the nose… all of these are funny. She’s clearly amused, though her “laugh” is still more of a single “ha”/sigh. Still, it’s a delightfully happy sound.
Daniel was the first to really, truly laugh. He’s done it again a few times, though it’s still very infrequent. It’s awesome every time it happens, though. He’s fussier in general, harder to please. But when he’s happy, the smile takes up his whole face. He put on quite a show for the many passers-by who stopped us at Whole Foods the other day. It’s particularly easy to get the smiles when he’s down to his diaper, getting ready for bath time. What can I say? The kid likes to be naked.

Language
Both babies make all variety of noises. Ooohs, aaahs, eeeehs… and the occasional ghee! Go, consonants! They both are particularly chatty on the play mat or when you’re right in front of them, interacting and chatting yourself.

Sleep
The naps, thank god, are improving. That was rough.
Rebecca is consistently easier to get to sleep. If you notice her getting drowsy, you pretty much just have to swaddle her, prop her in the Boppy (I know, verboten, I’m going to hell), give her a pacifier, and she’s good to go. Her naps don’t tend to be super long, but she also tends to wake up happy, so I figure that’s a sign that they’re sufficient. She pretty consistently eats twice overnight, say 11pm and 3am (ish). But she goes back to sleep easily, and wakes up happy in the morning.
Daniel takes more work to get to sleep, although I think it’s helped that I have moved all naps upstairs to the bedroom, so it’s a very consistent routine. He must be swaddled if I want him to sleep more than 10 minutes. He sleeps in a bouncy seat inside his crib, because he needs the bouncing motion to go to sleep, but I want him to associate the room with sleeping. We generally turn on the mobile and bounce him almost all the way to sleep, and I find you really have to avoid eye contact with him. He can’t fall asleep if there’s too much interacting going on. Naps have been too short recently, but they’re improving. On the upside, there have been several nights recently where we’ve put him down at 6:30-ish, and he only gets up one time between then and when he’s ready to start the day at 6am. And, one night, it was as late as 4:30am… could he be close to sleeping all the way through?

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Categories : Child Development, Infants, Sleep

Tags : Fine motor, Gross motor, NaBloPoMo, Naps, Overnight, Social/emotional

Overnight Update

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (0)· November 8th, 2007

Last night, I think, went reasonably well. I wasn’t setting my sights on the twins silently sleeping 12 hours, believe me. But here’s how it went after I put the babies to bed at about 6:30pm.

Daniel (not a surprise) woke up around 11-11:30, and my husband fed both of them. (I have to take his word for it, as I was asleep). They ate well, went back to sleep.
Daniel (are we noticing a pattern here?) woke up at 3:00. I was unconvinced that he was oh-so-hungry. I gave him his pacifier and bounced him back to sleep. I did go prepare bottles, however. By 3:55, he was waking back up and Rebecca was stirring, too. I fed them both (bottles already prepared, wahoo!), with Daniel taking most of his bottle (4 of 5oz), and Rebecca only taking half (2 of 4) before passing out (mark my words, she’ll be the first to sleep through the night). Daniel woke up briefly and took a little bouncing to go back down, but down he went.
Rebecca (for once) squawked a bit around 6:45. I groggily got out of bed, and found that she had scooched herself into an uncomfortable position, so a change and a pacifier and she was happy. I turned to see Daniel, calmly awake in the next crib. This was the best part. Both babies awake but happy. Since they’d been in bed a solid 12 hours, I decided to bring them both downstairs. We changed diapers, and both were all smiles. They even played on the mat for a good 15 minutes before eating.

It wasn’t sleeping through the night, and it wasn’t even down to one feeding. But they woke up happy, and that makes for a happy mommy.

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Categories : Infants, Sleep

Tags : NaBloPoMo, Overnight

Bedtime routine

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (1)· November 8th, 2007

I’ve been working over the last several weeks to develop a bedtime routine for the twins. It isn’t easy, of course. Aside from the varying moods of two three-month-olds and the general uncertainty as to the “right” way to go, there’s also some convincing that I have to do for M to go along with me. It’s not that he opposes my ideas in theory, but rather that his overriding motivation is to not have one wake up the other if the other is already down. Alas.

But tonight M is on call at work. He let me know he’d be home a bit later (which was then delayed further when he got paged), which left me to do the bedtime routine solo. A first. Thankfully, both babies had good naps and were in reasonably good spirits this evening, and I did what I could to lay everything out ahead of time. Here’s what went down:

At 6pm, we started bathtime. Obviously I can’t bathe both babies by myself, so Rebecca sat (and protested) in the bouncy seat on the floor while her brother enjoyed the bubbles. I also threw the iPod into the Sound Dock and put on my lullaby playlist. I sang along with Alison Krauss (Baby, Now that I’ve Found You) and Israel Kamamawiwo’ole (Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World). Much to my delight, Daniel got a kick out of this and smiled away as we sang and soaked. He then got dried off and into PJs, then into the bouncy seat as I repeated the process with Rebecca. She was treated to the Spaniels (Goodnight, it’s Time to Go) and the soundtrack from the Music Man (Goodnight, My Someone).

It got a bit noisier as I swaddled them and carted them upstairs in turn. Daniel was perhaps getting a little hungry, and Rebecca was approaching over-tired. It was now 6:30pm. I got them into their cribs (separate cribs, but right next to each other), and gave them a bottle I had prepared before starting the baths. This was the new addition to the routine, courtesy of another twin mom I went walking with this morning. She said she gives a bottle before bedtime, regardless of when they’ve last eaten. This was a radical idea to someone like me who is a) a slave to the 3-hour rotation; and b) afraid of over-feeding (my own hangups, to be sure). But one of her kids sleeps through the night and the other only wakes once, so I’m game. Rebecca, having only eaten only an hour and a half prior, took about an ounce and peacefully drifted to sleep by about 6:45. Daniel, who was arguably approaching a regular mealtime anyways, took closer to a full bottle (4 of the 5oz) and was out closer to 7:00 when all was said and done. Now, 30 minutes later, the monitor is silent.

Overnight, when they wake up to eat, we do our best to keep things very low-key. We often don’t even unswaddle them, much less change diapers (unless it’s noticeably full of poop, those diapers can handle overnight peeing, no rash issues yet). This has generally worked well to usher them right back to sleep, and hopefully send the message that nighttime is for sleeping and little else.

Anyways, that’s the routine as of… tonight. They are asleep in the same room (something M was sort of fighting, with the whole “don’t wake up your brother/sister” thing), and hopefully it’ll last several quiet hours. Fingers crossed…

Comments (1)

Categories : Infants, Sleep

Tags : bathtime, bedtime, NaBloPoMo, Overnight

Sleep Nut

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (3)· October 10th, 2007

I can feel myself becoming one of those people. You know, the ones who will let nothing stand in the way of their child’s nap time. I have friends like this, and perhaps wondered what the deal was. I’m just beginning to understand how precious baby sleep is.

Granted, my two are only just over two months old, and therefore too young to have a particularly regular nap schedule. However, last week I decided to try a little experiment. Not only do I have my two-month pediatric appointment coming up this week, but the topic at my mom & baby class this week was going to be about sleep. So I decided last Friday to start writing down what the twins were doing with regard to sleeping and eating. In part, I wanted to be able to ask and answer questions of my pediatrician with actual facts, not just my blurry memory (Was it yesterday he slept five hours straight, or two weeks ago? How much do they really eat in a day?). I also wanted to see if there were patterns emerging, which might help me predict things a little better.

Well, as they say, the act of observing something can change it. I started keeping track on Friday morning. In the back of my head were two things my class leader mentioned in passing last week: first, that babies this age should get at least some sleep every two hours or so, and second, that good sleep during the day equals good sleep at night. Within the first hours of Friday morning, I realized Daniel had been up and active for a while and was starting to get fussy. Instead of passively waiting for him to fall asleep, I decided to try to get him to sleep. Some combination of swaddling, rocking, and pacifier later, he was out for a nice nap (an hour and a half!). My whole awareness was shifted that day, and I started becoming more aware of whether or not either of them had taken a good rest between feedings. What do you know… that night was a stellar one for sleep. One good 5-hour stretch, sound sleep, and easy to get back down after a feeding. Brilliant!

Now, has this been perfect ever since? Of course not. Sunday, Daniel fought sleep all day long, tooth and nail. Not surprisingly, he was particularly overtired and fussy at my aunt’s house that night. But now I didn’t just pull out my hair, wishing he wouldn’t be so crabby. Now, I knew he was obviously overtired, and we just had to do everything in our power to get him to sleep. It took a long time and a lot of rocking in the carseat, but eventually he let go, and life was a little better.

When I have a few moments to myself, I’m trying to read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, by Dr. Weissbluth. This was sent to me early in my pregnancy by my friend, the Beppy, a hardcore sleep fanatic. At first I thought the book seemed a little harsh or cold, but I’m quickly converting. Even the good doctor doesn’t suggest trying to really get into a true schedule until at least 4 months, but I figure it’ll take me that long to read the whole thing at my current rate. We also discussed sleep in class this morning, and I picked up advice about starting a bedtime routine and the minimum amount of time that constitutes a restful nap (30 min).

And so, I am going to spend the next month or so working toward a regular bedtime routine for the twins. It’s a little tricky because I don’t have them on the same schedule right now (they’re such different weights, I don’t want to enforce eating at the same time), but we’ll figure something out. I’m just glad for progress, since I was not pleased with the nighttime routine we had going previously. Oh, and they’ve slept up in their room the last four nights. Finally, I’ve convinced M on that one… He thinks I’m a sleep nut already. He has no idea what’s coming.

Comments (3)

Categories : Newborns, Sleep

Tags : Naps, Overnight, Weissbluth

The night shift

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (4)· September 14th, 2007

My husband and I have spent the last six weeks trying to figure out our nighttime routine with the twins.
[As an aside, he really needs a name on this blog. But he's a bit of a stickler for internet privacy, so I know he wouldn't want me to use his actual name. Henceforth, he will be referred to as "M," if for no other reason than it's easy for me to remember. Moving on.]

Anyways, we’ve always been on different body clocks. I’m much more of a morning person, and “sleeping in” has always been defined for me by dozing past 8AM. I wasn’t particularly adept at the all-nighter in college, and though I’ve gotten worse since then, it’s not like I was ever all that functional after 1 in the morning (now it’s more like 10PM). M is quite the opposite. For him, it’s considered “early” if he gets up before noon on the weekends. He’s much more comfortable at night and in the early morning hours, in particular cherishing being awake and reading or playing World of Warcraft while the rest of the world is asleep (except the 2 million people playing Warcraft, of course). Nighttime is rejuvenating for him. This difference caused no small amount of conflict in our early relationship, and still sometimes flares up, but mostly we work with it.

Now comes the ultimate test of a person and their (strained) relationship with sleep: newborns. Ours have been on a more-or-less three hour rotation of feeding since day 1 or 2. Round the clock, they are ready to eat at 8, 11, 2, 5… or whatever that day’s particular hours are. The first week, when they were truly only waking up to eat and then immediately passing out again, we never managed to put them down anywhere other than the Pack n Play in our office. But as my eyes were being held open by toothpicks, beloved M insisted that I go up to bed, and he’d keep an eye and ear on the babies. And so our routine began, while he was home on paternity leave. We’d sort of take 8-hour shifts. He would insist I go to bed around 10, I’d sleep until 6, get up and send him to bed until 2. We’d overlap in the afternoon and evening. While sleeping that long was nice (and it was never really that long, since I’d wake up a couple of times, soaked through, and need to pump), it did not seem like a viable long-term solution. After all, in a few weeks, he needed to go back to work.

I tried bringing them upstairs to their crib a couple of times, maybe around 3 or 4 in the morning, but it usually involved me dozing in the glider and bringing them back down by 8 or 9AM. But I kept insisting that we try that more. Gallant as it was for M to insist I get some sleep, he’s the one who needs to go to work in the morning. I can afford to be a zombie in my pajamas during the day, if necessary. But he fought it, claiming he slept too badly when he heard all of their noises upstairs. Better to just take a shift being awake.

Last night, he finally gave in. We brought the babies up around 11PM and attempted to go to bed.

Let me pause and say that our twins are generally a lot fussier at night, for whatever reason. It has gotten better recently, especially since we started Daniel’s reflux meds, but still. Now that they are spending more time awake, overall, they are much harder to put to sleep after eating. Swaddles, pacifiers, etc… they still sometimes fight going down.

Last night, they decided to really show it off. I think they knew a certain amount of righteous pride was on the line for me. I slept about two hours, total. M, genuinely misunderstanding my intentions, stayed in bed all night.

Neither baby had any interest in falling asleep after eating. Nor did they have any interest in at least resting quietly with their eyes open, as they occasionally do during the day. Nope, they were fidgety and fussy and grunting and screeching, all night long. I tried to avoid the pacifier, even though it would calm them down (Daniel, especially), because once it goes in, you’re a slave to it. Daniel, in particular, loves the pacifier, but has such a strange/awful sucking motion that it’s out within seconds. At which point he screams as if stabbed in the heart. So once it goes in, you’ve committed to essentially standing over him and plugging it back in every time it falls out.

Anyways, suffice it to say that last night was a failed experiment. So here I am, blogging at 4:00 in the morning, having slept from 10pm to 3am (on the upside, I got up and pumped over 3.5oz! A new record!). M will sleep until probably 9:30, when I tell him for the third time that it’s getting late and he really should get up and go to work. I still maintain that this is not a workable long-term solution, but M seems to feel it’s the best we’ve got until they start sleeping better/longer stretches at night.

Any suggestions out there? I know six weeks is a bit early still to talk about sleep training and things like that, but it sure would be nice if they would pass out a little more easily at night. I wouldn’t mind getting up to feed them every 3-4 hours if they actually slept reliably in between!

On the upside, I did make an apple pie at 5AM the other day.

Comments (4)

Categories : My beloved, Newborns, Sleep

Tags : Overnight