We’re at one of those points in parenting where we cry out for help. Every night at the Boyd house, we have some night wakings — but not just for the infant, the toddler too. We keep hoping that Lucy will get over it, the sooner the better.
p{color:gray}. Photo: Happy enough during the day!
Before Rosie was born, Lucy was a solid night sleeper — very rarely waking in the middle of the night, and usually only if she was ill. After her little sister came along, Lucy had a stretch of middle-of-the-night wakings. “Toddlers wake at night when they are anxious,” I read somewhere, and this made sense to me. And, even though we didn’t enjoy it, Lucy grew out of these night wakings. Mostly.
The fact is, even though we’ve had weeks on end where Lucy doesn’t wake at night, most of the time we can expect to hear “Rock a little bit!” or “I’m awake!” two or three times a week. She’s almost never that upset (or frightened, for instance), just awake. She at least wants to be picked up and rocked in the rocking chair, and usually urgently demands to be sung to, as well (with particular repertoire in mind: “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” or “Edelweiss,” believe it or not). These night wakings generally seem unrelated to Rosie’s cries for mid-night feedings. Lucy often calls out at a totally different time of the night, although occasionally it seems that Rosie’s crying wakes her up a bit.
There have been times — like this past week, when we were on vacation at our friends’ “lake house”:/news/2008/vacation-for-four/ — when Lucy has woken up about every two hours. One night, it came to five visits! Ack! However, it seems that the combination of sleeping in a tiny pack ’n’ play and staying at an unfamiliar house with ticking heat registers had something to do with her sleeplessness. Mine too, for that matter (although I wasn’t sleeping in a pack ’n’ play).
We have noticed an increase in sleep disturbances around developmental growth periods, like “potty training”:/news/2008/potty-training-weekend/, or when we built the “big girl bed”:/news/2008/lucys-big-girl-bed/ in Lucy’s room. The tough thing is, we are on the cusp of more things like this — like graduating to underpants, and making the transition to actually _sleeping_ in the big girl bed — and we’re hoping to get through them with some stretches of sleep intact. I’ve read that, in some cases, children start sleeping _better_ after they make the switch to the big bed, but there are just as many instances of sleep patterns deteriorating, and I’m just a bit nervous about it.
Bottom line: We’d really like to teach Lucy to put herself back to sleep all the time. This would be a special gift for Jon, who is on “Lucy duty” at nights.
As for Rosie, she is doing quite well — definitely falling into more of a once-a-night feeding instead of twice-a-night. Even one night feeding feels like sort of a lot, especially at ten months old, but I think we often feel nervous about letting her cry for too long at night, risking disturbing Lucy’s sleep.
I’m conscious that these are precious years with our very young daughters, and I try to find joy in each part, even the tough things. And while I do love the smell of Lucy’s freshly washed hair on the rare occasions that I, rather than Papa, snuggle her in the middle of the night, we’d all benefit from some extra sleep. How can we help her sleep solidly (or put herself back to sleep) during the night? Does anyone have any tips for us?
Great questions! I’m not sure I have answers or even suggestions. We “share sleep” with the one who is nursing at the time and somewhere between age 2 and three she or he is ready to move into their own bed. Usually around there we get pregnant again and the whole thing starts over again.
Strangely enough, when Mom is expecting or nursing, she is physically unable to hear the others wake up, so that’s Dad’s job solely. For us, waking up in the middle of the night is usually about the little one being thirsty (makes sense if you’ve been nursing the last three years) so that’s easily fixed. Sometimes reminding them that there’s a sippy-cup of water at the head of their bed is enough.
Whatever it’s causes or remedies, I hope this phase passes quickly for you.
I’m at one of those points in parenting when you call out for help, too – only it’s about driving and dating! Rest assured there are a few years between the babies being up at night and the teenagers being out at night in which you will get a few long stretches of sleep. Being a parent has certainly taught me to appreciate my bed.
We were never too big on letting anyone cry anything out, but we had lots of friends for whom that worked great. I think the main asset in these years is creativity – don’t hesitate to try anything that will make these bumpy nights easier for your family. For a while, three of our kids all slept in one futon on the floor in their bedroom and we slept with the smallest on a futon on the floor in the living room. Sounds inconvenient in some ways (like cleaning up the bed every morning) but it was the solution that gave us the most sleep at night. If nursing Ros at night lets everyone sleep more – you should for sure do it!
We read and sang to our kids as babies and toddlers – for what seemed like hours every night! – and a nice transition was to get them a tape player and let them choose music or books on tape to get themselves to sleep as they got older. Maybe this would work for Lucy in the middle of the night and she could even learn to put something on for herself when she wakes up. My kids all eventually outgrew the need to have something on when they were getting to sleep, so I don’t think you have to worry about that becoming a dependency long-term. Eli did end up with an odd accent, though, and we think that’s from listening to various proper English readers on tape!
Benjamin went through a similar phase, only instead of just being awake, he would come to our room, get in bed with us and talk to us, etc. Then would want various things before going back to bed. What finally worked for us was as soon as he came in our room, to pick him up and take him back to bed without saying anything or doing anything. We just very calmly (and silently) took him back to bed, covered him up and left. This was repeated if he came out again. He pretty quickly figured out that he wasn’t going to get any (positive or negative) attention from us during the night and started sleeping through once more.
If Lucy is not actually getting out of bed, I would recommend going in and laying her back down, covering her up, but not indulging rocking or singing as this may just reinforce the habit. We also found it helpful with Benjamin to discuss the whole process during the day and at bedtime so when we ignored him at night it didn’t freak him out. We simply said something like “At night everyone needs to sleep so tonight you cannot come get in our bed – you have to sleep in your bed. If you get out of bed we will put you back in bed but we will not talk to you or sing to you or cuddle you”
We also tried to increase the one-on-one time he got during the day, because I think sometimes they try to get the cuddling and attention at night that they missed during the day (which happens so easily when there is more than one child in the house).
I respect your desire to find joy in each part of parenting, even the tough times. But it might be a relief to allow yourself to dislike aspects of it, like night wakings. We had some success with the ideas in Elizabeth Pantley’s book No Cry Sleep Solution for the Toddler and Preschooler. She was very realistic about the challenge and admitted that it may be more of a not-alot-of-crying sleep solution, rather than totally no-cry. I hope things get better in the sleep arena soon!
I hear ya! Maddy did this to for a while. We would go do the same as nicole if she came in our room (which stopped after a week). But then she did the calling out for us. At which point I would go in, kiss and say sleepy time and leave (some times I would be instructed by her to turn on the night light and music). Madelyn is a reader and she will some times get out books and sooth herself in the middle of the night that way too. But really the phase only lasted a few weeks. Then we got the nightmares, in which we would go in to find her not awake but screaming, FUN. We would then tell her a loving story (yes, while she was asleep) until she calmed down and went back to sleep.
Lydia is still not sleeping though the night, but we have it down to nursing at 6pm and 6am and then she wakes up 1 – 3 times a night at which we will “nook” her after giving her 10 mins to try to sooth herself. Some times she does it and some times not. Last night was a good night with one cry out in the middle of the night!
Good luck.
Hey ann! how are nights going? and how is Jon’s job search going? We are praying for you.
-katrina