In the eleventh hour, a final string plucked before Mommy and Daddy strike back. With charts. And intervals. And sports watches. Baby won't know what hit her! But hopefully it will be a big smack of the sleepy stick, goddarnit. Furbies be damned, bring on the Ferbmeister.
Desperation: All I want for Christmas is a few hours of sleep.
Merry almost Christmas! In my world this would usually be Christmas Day Observed with my mom. But it's Chaya's world now so I'm not sure what day it is!
Of course Chaya confounded what was nearly "a good evening " of two and three hour sleeps by waking roughly an hour early yesterday. This spells doom in baby land. Or at least begins the morning with a manic baby needing plenty of attention and rapidly evolving into a miserable glum Golem of a creature who still need lots of attention. Actually achieving breakfast was a great feat, one which required an eleventh hour assist from Gramma Pam.
And of course in the eleventh and a half hour, I remembered it was garbage day. Garbage day once upon a time was a rather inconsequential day. Miss it one day, catch it next week. But this laxity predates baby. Now garbage day comes none too soon and is an imperative.
And so out into rain lugging a bin stuffed full of diaper detritus and take-out togs. Of course the bin was too full for the lid to stay affixed, and the wind made short work of it. The car subsequently added insult to lidded injury: we backed over the poor thing in our attempt to escape to the office. But before that I managed to mostly avoid spilling the innards of our bin over the driveway,which was already covered in macerated newspaper.
Shockingly, the rest of the day went well. Chaya reapplied her little baby brain to several milestones, such as sitting on the chair backwards, dropping things on ground and blowing crazy bubbles in a raspberry drool storm.
She even helped decorate for Christmas.
Sadly the sweetness was short-lived, setting mommy up for another night of hourly wakings and a pretty big eyed awake from 4:30 until mommy finished a decent cup of half caff around five (since she managed to leak her tea out of her spill proof thermos all over her bed and pants around three am)... And then idled in bed until the collegiate hour of 6:30.
This really can't be physically sustainable. There was a two and a half hour chunk in there or else I might really be plunking baby down on daddy's pillow and running for the hills. But the up at 4:30 thing is not a winner. Maybe she's just excited to see Santa?
Still, by my lowered standards, this was more of a meh night than a nightmare. A sinking sense that our holiday tinsel will be pierced with howls and soaked in tears; a sense of futility in the ongoing nap wars. But a "it's been worse" follows on the heels of any cavil. And hey she slept a half hour on daddy while mommy frantically cleaned and showered.
Every night is a big question mark lottery. I am starting to develop all kinds of superstitions. Pretty soon I'll be sacrificing chickens as part of the bedtime ritual
When she's a teenager, I am going to make sure to be very very loud and wake her up starting at 4 a.m. through 10 a.m. every half hour. She'll never quite know why, but revenge is a dish best served several years cold.
Into the Rabbit Holey-Moley Guacaferbierooniemole
Ok, internet forum miracle mommies, I get it: I'm a horrible parent. I'm neglecting/abusing my child. I'm destroying her future of ever developing healthy attachments, and learning her some cortisol soaked helplessness that will destroy all trust she was just building in me and her daddy. Or something. There. We got it out of our systems.
But again, the alternative was that I was seriously depriving her of sleep, hurtling us all down the garden path towards some kind of horrifying postpartum psychosis that probably wouldn't be that great either.
As with many things in my postpartum parenting philosophy, there's an ideal and there's a reality. Ideally, I would have breastfed her in preference to formula and keep that virgin gut intact through to six months, and THEN continued the BFF-with-bf-ing relationship for two to four years until she could articulately explain to me that she preferred her organic handmade rice cakes thank you mommy.
But when my supply tanked down to running on fumes, I guess I came to decide that ultimately somebody who eats a single shot of wheatgrass a day is still going to be less healthy than somebody who gets 1900 calories of Ensure a day.
I'm glad I managed to trick my system and rehaul mother's milk, but if the dom perignon ever stops working, we adjust. Or if I need to continue pumping several times a day (I've cut back to two or three a day as a "just in case"), well... again.
I'm glad I managed to trick my system and rehaul mother's milk, but if the dom perignon ever stops working, we adjust. Or if I need to continue pumping several times a day (I've cut back to two or three a day as a "just in case"), well... again.
We don't live in Eden. Healthy mommy beats manic martyr.
Similarly, in an ideal world, I am so into attachment parenting. I love wearing my baby. I'm great at walking with her several hours a day. If I were a single parent and she were a slightly easier baby, I would bedshare with her until her toddler years.
But I'm not.
Similarly, in an ideal world, I am so into attachment parenting. I love wearing my baby. I'm great at walking with her several hours a day. If I were a single parent and she were a slightly easier baby, I would bedshare with her until her toddler years.
But I'm not.
In actuality, I'm married to an attractive (slightly thrashy snoring) man with a body I'd kind of like to enjoy sometimes. My baby is not that easy baby. Since her birth, we don't sleep much at night. Or during the day. My brains are melting out my ears. And somehow I think that letting baby learn self-soothing in her crib is a superior option yet again to having a broken-marriaged home and a mother who can't care for her. Or, heaven forbid, an injury resulting from mommy's massive sleep debt paired with baby's stunted health from her own massive sleep debt. I know there's a happier Chaya in there somewhere. And I know that we're just not making the current routine work.
And we all know that the gentler methods haven't worked with her.
And we all know that the gentler methods haven't worked with her.
But I've also learned that shockingly, she will calm down after a good cry and can even fall asleep (sadly, not stay asleep yet) on her own after a nightime battle with daddy. In fact she often prefers this to daddy rocking her to sleep (mommy is a massive sleep crutch but that's a different story).
Begin the Ferberization! (cue Wagnerian strains of anticipatory battle)
No, not the practice of burying baby in 1990's AI toys until she passes out from sheer terror. That actually would be child abuse.
But the process of "extinction" (sounds worse than it is). Many know the F-bomb as the CIO method, but I see no Chief Information Officers in sight.
Begin the Ferberization! (cue Wagnerian strains of anticipatory battle)
No, not the practice of burying baby in 1990's AI toys until she passes out from sheer terror. That actually would be child abuse.
But the process of "extinction" (sounds worse than it is). Many know the F-bomb as the CIO method, but I see no Chief Information Officers in sight.
Har har.
No, it is not exactly crying it out. It's more like "duh the baby's going to cry, and the parents are going to stand outside the door with a stop watch and several tables to keep them occupied between intervals of returning to baby's room, as they pretend their presence is the slightest bit soothing, before leaving again for another agonizing interval."
The idea is that all the desperate parental measures that we took to get baby to sleep AT ALL before... are now sleep associations and/or crutches (dun dun dun). They will plague baby the rest of her life if we don't detox her immediately with some tough love. Or at least we'll fall into increasingly unsustainable patterns in a desperate stab at getting baby to sleep instead of letting baby learn to fall asleep herself. Or something like that.
The idea is that all the desperate parental measures that we took to get baby to sleep AT ALL before... are now sleep associations and/or crutches (dun dun dun). They will plague baby the rest of her life if we don't detox her immediately with some tough love. Or at least we'll fall into increasingly unsustainable patterns in a desperate stab at getting baby to sleep instead of letting baby learn to fall asleep herself. Or something like that.
And I just can't go to college with her because she'll only sleep in my lap with a thumb in her mouth.
Ferber is kind of giving the green light in some ways to not try so freakin' hard to deny your child the slightest hint of discomfort or unease, In other words, Ferber is basically the "treat your first born child like the fourth born..." with some modifications and more charts, because it is your first born, right??
Because how many times does a veteran parent let their kid cry for a handful of minutes because they're busy with other kids and responsibilities? A ton. And it probably doesn't damage the younger kids forever. Probably. God, I hope so. Then again the veteran parent probably doesn't feel every baby sob as a little razor against their heart. There's some callousing going on.
And so with a fresh pot of coffee brewing and a new baby monitor in the crib, we began. At the worst possible time. Not only is four months the least advised time to sleep train (developmental things going on, sleep regression, certain relationship things to do with baby and parents), but right before one of the parents leaves on a vacation is pretty roundly recommended against.
But daddy is a man of action. And mommy at this point already isn't sleeping, so she's relieved to share the onus and the major sleep debt. And to have her husband back in bed with her as baby cries.
One night in...
We're all still alive. I think...
Baby is exhausted. Poor thing did not sleep well (big shock). She continued her short jags of sleep - waking every ninety minutes to two and a half hours until she really woke up and would not be waited-to-sleep at 5:30 or earlier. And she took twenty to thirty minutes to go back to sleep some of those times.
And so with a fresh pot of coffee brewing and a new baby monitor in the crib, we began. At the worst possible time. Not only is four months the least advised time to sleep train (developmental things going on, sleep regression, certain relationship things to do with baby and parents), but right before one of the parents leaves on a vacation is pretty roundly recommended against.
But daddy is a man of action. And mommy at this point already isn't sleeping, so she's relieved to share the onus and the major sleep debt. And to have her husband back in bed with her as baby cries.
One night in...
We're all still alive. I think...
Baby is exhausted. Poor thing did not sleep well (big shock). She continued her short jags of sleep - waking every ninety minutes to two and a half hours until she really woke up and would not be waited-to-sleep at 5:30 or earlier. And she took twenty to thirty minutes to go back to sleep some of those times.
Then again, twice, she woke up, was fed, and stayed calm/fell asleep after a minute or less of protest.
We have two more days before Andrew heads off to Tahoe. I'm terrified of continuing the trek alone and we've agreed that if it isn't sticking, we'll start again when he gets home and has some vacation time. Tonight is supposed to be the absolute pits. "Most" and/or "many" and/or "a lucky some" find success really kicks in around the 3-4 night mark. Right when we mess with the routine in Andrew's absence.
We're holding off on nap training for now since there's only so much any of us can take. And naps purportedly become easier when/if nights fall into place.
I can't believe how quiet and dark our room is in Chaya's absence. I miss her snuggles, but those few hours of restless sleep are qualitatively lightyears more restful without baby on me. I don't know that this will stick, but I'm increasingly hopeful...
Up next in the annals of - er - adaptive parenting, how I bought my six month old a baby iPhone ...
Fluke or Ferb-fabtastic??
So, I was fully prepared for Babygeddon last night. From all I've heard, the second and third night of Ferberization are harder than the first. Especially considering that I was spacing out feeds by an additional half hour last night, and that baby was insanely fatigued to the point of manic yesterday afternoon.
Daddy napped while baby had a crutch-full walking nap in the morning. Mommy visited an old friend (who does not have children and therefore got the joy of discovering that all new parents are desperate assholes to the non-parental old-friend, and are constantly cutting events short, checking their phones, and changing plans like the shifting sands of the Gobi).
And nighttime came. Dun dun dun. Baby had been hanging on by a thread since 3 p.m. She took one good morning nap. One boba nap (half hour only, which is apparently not super restful, but versus nothing at all...) and maybe lingered for a snooze or two during the odd nursing session.
She was a powder keg.
Clearly we were in for a long night... however a long night of mostly quiet?? That was a bit of a shock.
After fussing through a bedtime story, Miss Chaya "went down" (way down) and daddy fled the room. She made her noises. But they didn't evolve into crying. They stayed noises. Then de-escalated into baby babbling. Then... silence at just around 8 p.m.
We checked the monitor and the accursed (poor Daddy) white noise machine was still going. We counted it as sleep. Mommy tucked in at 8 in preparation for a long night, while daddy took the monitor and prepared for the Ferberventions according to our nifty "night two table" (five minutes, ten minutes, twelve... twelve onwards and upwards).
Not a peep until 10:30.
We have two more days before Andrew heads off to Tahoe. I'm terrified of continuing the trek alone and we've agreed that if it isn't sticking, we'll start again when he gets home and has some vacation time. Tonight is supposed to be the absolute pits. "Most" and/or "many" and/or "a lucky some" find success really kicks in around the 3-4 night mark. Right when we mess with the routine in Andrew's absence.
We're holding off on nap training for now since there's only so much any of us can take. And naps purportedly become easier when/if nights fall into place.
I can't believe how quiet and dark our room is in Chaya's absence. I miss her snuggles, but those few hours of restless sleep are qualitatively lightyears more restful without baby on me. I don't know that this will stick, but I'm increasingly hopeful...
Up next in the annals of - er - adaptive parenting, how I bought my six month old a baby iPhone ...
Fluke or Ferb-fabtastic??
So, I was fully prepared for Babygeddon last night. From all I've heard, the second and third night of Ferberization are harder than the first. Especially considering that I was spacing out feeds by an additional half hour last night, and that baby was insanely fatigued to the point of manic yesterday afternoon.
Daddy napped while baby had a crutch-full walking nap in the morning. Mommy visited an old friend (who does not have children and therefore got the joy of discovering that all new parents are desperate assholes to the non-parental old-friend, and are constantly cutting events short, checking their phones, and changing plans like the shifting sands of the Gobi).
And nighttime came. Dun dun dun. Baby had been hanging on by a thread since 3 p.m. She took one good morning nap. One boba nap (half hour only, which is apparently not super restful, but versus nothing at all...) and maybe lingered for a snooze or two during the odd nursing session.
She was a powder keg.
Clearly we were in for a long night... however a long night of mostly quiet?? That was a bit of a shock.
After fussing through a bedtime story, Miss Chaya "went down" (way down) and daddy fled the room. She made her noises. But they didn't evolve into crying. They stayed noises. Then de-escalated into baby babbling. Then... silence at just around 8 p.m.
We checked the monitor and the accursed (poor Daddy) white noise machine was still going. We counted it as sleep. Mommy tucked in at 8 in preparation for a long night, while daddy took the monitor and prepared for the Ferberventions according to our nifty "night two table" (five minutes, ten minutes, twelve... twelve onwards and upwards).
Not a peep until 10:30.
Meaning she went the two and a half hours between feeds we'd been warily planning to enforce. Mommy charged in with boobs overbrimming. Baby was awake though not screaming just yet and - surprise of all surprises - on her belly. Not ideal with her arms swaddled, but a milestone nonetheless. She's been close to rolling onto her belly for months, but never bothered to take the plunge. I'm not sure how reliably she can go from belly to back, though she has done this more than once. But definitely not with arms swaddled.
Nervous about killing the baby, but equally nervous that unswaddling her would lead to constant night wakings, mommy finished nursing, observed baby immediately flip onto her side, and deferred to daddy. She didn't realize that daddy subsequently unswaddled her arms. Which was a little panic-inducing when she noticed that it was past 1:00 a.m. and baby was shockingly silent. Again, she entertained the various "my baby died due to sleep training" scenarios. After selecting a great grief counselor and just barely saving her marriage after a year of very difficult emotional challenges (but never completely recovering) mommy drifted in and out right until baby blessedly stirred at 2:30 a.m.
2:30 a.m.!!
Proving Chaya can actually go over four hours between feeds. Proving she is not waking up hungry as much as waking up and then nursing to go back to sleep. Proving, holy crap baby remembers how to sleep. I think she woke a little in between those two feeds, but went back to sleep with only a brief "halloo" and unswaddle from daddy.
Figuring that the early morning would be as hard as usual, mommy counted her blessings, thanked the gods and again steeled for a tough last jag of crying. Don't get cocky, she told herself.
And her expectations were partially met at about 5 a.m. when familiar baby noises began. Daddy suggested we might have reached the accursed "waking window" in which Ferber would claim Chaya is no longer willing to sleep. Mommy protested. In general. In fear. But also with some experience that Chaya had been seeming to be very AWAKE at 4:45 a.m. when they were bedsharing, and that she typically slept another hour anyways.
She offered to do the intervals and went to grab the monitor. But then baby just went ahead and talked herself back to silence. Some occasional goo-gaaaas, but nothing substantial until... drumroll please... 6:35 a.m.
Another three hours after her last feed.
Baby anticipated mommy's progressive weaning plan for tonight for the most part (first feed excluded anyways).
She nursed for a good half hour, at which point it really was wake up time. So we got up and shook our heads.
Daddy declared a sleepy victory, while mommy waffled between letting herself succumb to unadulterated hope and some experience with baby messing with her just that little extra bit by having the "I'll break you yet" odd night of good sleep.
Time will tell, but I'll take last night regardless. It proves she can do it. That's kind of a biggie in my world.
So that is amazing. The sleep was... amazing. Sure it's still way less than average. Still a bit interrupted. Still full of anxious awakenings. And sure I still have been going to bed at 8 p.m. and not really seeing much of daddy BUT...
1. Mr. (W)right and I share the same bed again, and I'm not constantly hissing at him that his nighttime rollicking is threatening to kill the baby.
2. The bedroom is dark and mostly quiet and I can sleep in a comfortable position without worrying about moving around.
3. As such, I sleep way better when I do sleep.
4. Nursing in a chair is actually easier in a lot of ways.
5. It seems like Chaya is sleeping better on her own and taking to the crib well.
6. Mommy can get up to use the bathroom or run downstairs or kiss daddy or whatever she wants at night. And if she wants, she can postpone her bedtime to talk to daddy or finish something up downstairs.
Now the real questions:
1. Was it a fluke? Will tonight show some regressions and even if so won't it still be worth it to keep going while Andrew is gone. Will Chaya have the same reaction when mommy is putting her to bed?
2. The biggie: naps. Can we start working on nap training? When? How? Will it help or hurt?
For now, I'm relying on my morning sleep crutch to make sure baby has her two hour nap. When something's golden and you want a slightly rested baby, well... the less rested the baby the less well she'll take to the evening sleeps in theory (although sometimes I wonder if she did so well last night because she was so exhausted).
Naps would be amazing though. I'd have my time back. I'd be able to do the things I currently need to rush around doing while Andrew or my mom watches Chaya. I could get back to cooking. Ask somebody else to "watch" the sleeping baby while I run out for errands without worrying about her melting down so much. I could even work out or read or nap myself. It would be fairly life-changing to get there. And likely spare my back some serious damage, since a fourteen pound baby carried for four hours a day is kind of havoc. And baby would be in such a better mood by the end of the day!
But at the same time, the naps may be harder. We don't have the same bedtime routine for naps; instead the routine involves putting her in the boba etc. etc. We need to put her down consistently in a dark and quiet space. Does that mean I can do it at the office and at home? Do I need to start staying home during naps? Are Chaya's konk out times of "roughly 9:30 and 1:30" good times and how do we work in that third afternoon nap?
If she's totally napless, will that destroy her nighttime sleep?
Will improved nighttime sleep help the napping or are they just separate?
How long should I wait to start trying? I feel like at least until I have black out curtains up and maybe have started more of a nap ritual. And possibly decided where to concentrate it. I'd initially planned to just start all sleep training all at once over a period where my mom was going to be out of the office. Stay home so I could take naps and so on.
Now I'm less certain and feeling like a wuss for not going for it. But then again, I don't know what tonight holds.
So for now, I'm going to marvel at the single miracle and not start banking on the future.
And brew some more coffee for super daddy. Here's hoping he's using his pre-vacation-trip day off for a good long nap.
Ferbaby Blitz
Night three of Ferberization (seriously, is our child a piece of upholstery getting some kind of chemical treatment?) was not the unadulterated improvement of night two.
There were perhaps reasons for this. Like, well, duh... things get better and worse. Baby slept more during the day and the prior night, so the sheer and utter exhaustion that occasionally does lend baby towards four plus hours of sleep weren't present.
And then there was the sartorial snag. On Sunday night, Chaya kept rolling over onto her belly. Which means she can no longer be swaddled. At least not if we care about her safety. So last night we tried the Merlin's Sleep Suit, which is kind of like a mix between an astronaut's kit, a self-defense dummy, and a giant banana (there's always money in the banana baby). Andrew found this particularly hilarious, probably based on the absence of solid sleep for any of the (W)right household. Poor Chaya was moderately offended I'm sure.
We tried the sleep suit for roughly long enough for Chaya to get really into nursing in our bedtime ritual, at which point, Andrew returned to the room with extensive reservations about the sumo banana suit. I guess you're not supposed to use them if baby is rolling onto her stomach (technically if baby is rolling onto her stomach in the suit, which I guess is supposed to be much harder and kind of the point of the suit... but whichever). I pulled her from nursing and he decided to wrestle her from the suit (no easy task) and put her in the world's most challenging sleeper pajamas.
I think perhaps we missed that Cry-it-out isn't actually supposed to begin by making your child cry.
Ah well.
I sang down an hysterical half dressed baby until she was ok with nursing again, and the nighttime ritual continued unabated. Afraid of Chaya's typical nightly meltdown, Andrew may have read through her evening book apace and skipped any other formalities.
She was in bed and ready for the action by 7:30. She talked to herself for a good fifteen minutes from her crib. She cried a good not-quite-ten. And she was out.
For two hours. Which was long enough for me to go in and feed her. She cried again after I put her back in her crib, but again not for particularly long.
She slept for another two and a half hours. Again enough time to feed her when you consider the time it took to nurse her in the first place and then for her to fall asleep.
When I came in and went out, there was a lot of movement. Not having that sleep sack was definitely disruptive. But not so much so that she didn't at least have a good three and a half hour sleep after this. Another feeding was followed by plaintive but fleeting fussing. Followed by an hour. Some fussing. Some quiet. Some more fussing and even enough crying that Daddy consulted his timer watch. More quiet.
ALARM!! Daddy is done with this Ferberization as of this morning. He's off to go ski with his family. Then again, since mommy's mostly been the one doing the visits (since Chaya hasn't gone long enough for the interval check ins the last two nights), this is less terrifying than it could be. He had a morning flight, so up he got in between Chaya noises.
She wasn't exactly asleep but she wasn't complaining too much either. Eventually she did start calling out and I got her just before seven to see daddy off.
She's exhausted still. I get the feeling this is not the most restful of sleep, although it wasn't all that restful before either. She may also be catching up on a pretty longstanding deficit. Whatever else, she zonked in the boba (because I am still using my daytime nap-crutches thank you much) and really had a hard time waking up after two hours.
Last night was pretty ok, but definitely tougher than the second night. I have no idea what tonight holds in store for me, although the idea that she could regress with one big extinction burst pairs well with the awareness that I'm all on my own tonight.
I have it on good authority that daddy has made it to Oakland and is happily on his way to a ski vacation. Mommy and baby are well on their way to Ferber day Four: Ferbmaggeddon. In theory, most babies start sleeping "well" by this point. If not, well we ought to give it a week. If still improving, we keep giving it a little more time to the intervals we aren't hitting already. If things are going downhill fast, then we find some other part of the book and reconsider. Seriously hoping that we meet some metric of "well" tonight just cause.
It is going to be some long intercom-watched weirdness this evening. But I did get a pretty adorable baby this lunchtime waking period, so something's working. Maybe just my sterling genetics! They can't hurt!
Nervous about killing the baby, but equally nervous that unswaddling her would lead to constant night wakings, mommy finished nursing, observed baby immediately flip onto her side, and deferred to daddy. She didn't realize that daddy subsequently unswaddled her arms. Which was a little panic-inducing when she noticed that it was past 1:00 a.m. and baby was shockingly silent. Again, she entertained the various "my baby died due to sleep training" scenarios. After selecting a great grief counselor and just barely saving her marriage after a year of very difficult emotional challenges (but never completely recovering) mommy drifted in and out right until baby blessedly stirred at 2:30 a.m.
2:30 a.m.!!
Proving Chaya can actually go over four hours between feeds. Proving she is not waking up hungry as much as waking up and then nursing to go back to sleep. Proving, holy crap baby remembers how to sleep. I think she woke a little in between those two feeds, but went back to sleep with only a brief "halloo" and unswaddle from daddy.
Figuring that the early morning would be as hard as usual, mommy counted her blessings, thanked the gods and again steeled for a tough last jag of crying. Don't get cocky, she told herself.
And her expectations were partially met at about 5 a.m. when familiar baby noises began. Daddy suggested we might have reached the accursed "waking window" in which Ferber would claim Chaya is no longer willing to sleep. Mommy protested. In general. In fear. But also with some experience that Chaya had been seeming to be very AWAKE at 4:45 a.m. when they were bedsharing, and that she typically slept another hour anyways.
She offered to do the intervals and went to grab the monitor. But then baby just went ahead and talked herself back to silence. Some occasional goo-gaaaas, but nothing substantial until... drumroll please... 6:35 a.m.
Another three hours after her last feed.
Baby anticipated mommy's progressive weaning plan for tonight for the most part (first feed excluded anyways).
She nursed for a good half hour, at which point it really was wake up time. So we got up and shook our heads.
Daddy declared a sleepy victory, while mommy waffled between letting herself succumb to unadulterated hope and some experience with baby messing with her just that little extra bit by having the "I'll break you yet" odd night of good sleep.
Time will tell, but I'll take last night regardless. It proves she can do it. That's kind of a biggie in my world.
So that is amazing. The sleep was... amazing. Sure it's still way less than average. Still a bit interrupted. Still full of anxious awakenings. And sure I still have been going to bed at 8 p.m. and not really seeing much of daddy BUT...
1. Mr. (W)right and I share the same bed again, and I'm not constantly hissing at him that his nighttime rollicking is threatening to kill the baby.
2. The bedroom is dark and mostly quiet and I can sleep in a comfortable position without worrying about moving around.
3. As such, I sleep way better when I do sleep.
4. Nursing in a chair is actually easier in a lot of ways.
5. It seems like Chaya is sleeping better on her own and taking to the crib well.
6. Mommy can get up to use the bathroom or run downstairs or kiss daddy or whatever she wants at night. And if she wants, she can postpone her bedtime to talk to daddy or finish something up downstairs.
Now the real questions:
1. Was it a fluke? Will tonight show some regressions and even if so won't it still be worth it to keep going while Andrew is gone. Will Chaya have the same reaction when mommy is putting her to bed?
2. The biggie: naps. Can we start working on nap training? When? How? Will it help or hurt?
For now, I'm relying on my morning sleep crutch to make sure baby has her two hour nap. When something's golden and you want a slightly rested baby, well... the less rested the baby the less well she'll take to the evening sleeps in theory (although sometimes I wonder if she did so well last night because she was so exhausted).
Naps would be amazing though. I'd have my time back. I'd be able to do the things I currently need to rush around doing while Andrew or my mom watches Chaya. I could get back to cooking. Ask somebody else to "watch" the sleeping baby while I run out for errands without worrying about her melting down so much. I could even work out or read or nap myself. It would be fairly life-changing to get there. And likely spare my back some serious damage, since a fourteen pound baby carried for four hours a day is kind of havoc. And baby would be in such a better mood by the end of the day!
But at the same time, the naps may be harder. We don't have the same bedtime routine for naps; instead the routine involves putting her in the boba etc. etc. We need to put her down consistently in a dark and quiet space. Does that mean I can do it at the office and at home? Do I need to start staying home during naps? Are Chaya's konk out times of "roughly 9:30 and 1:30" good times and how do we work in that third afternoon nap?
If she's totally napless, will that destroy her nighttime sleep?
Will improved nighttime sleep help the napping or are they just separate?
How long should I wait to start trying? I feel like at least until I have black out curtains up and maybe have started more of a nap ritual. And possibly decided where to concentrate it. I'd initially planned to just start all sleep training all at once over a period where my mom was going to be out of the office. Stay home so I could take naps and so on.
Now I'm less certain and feeling like a wuss for not going for it. But then again, I don't know what tonight holds.
So for now, I'm going to marvel at the single miracle and not start banking on the future.
And brew some more coffee for super daddy. Here's hoping he's using his pre-vacation-trip day off for a good long nap.
Ferbaby Blitz
Night three of Ferberization (seriously, is our child a piece of upholstery getting some kind of chemical treatment?) was not the unadulterated improvement of night two.
There were perhaps reasons for this. Like, well, duh... things get better and worse. Baby slept more during the day and the prior night, so the sheer and utter exhaustion that occasionally does lend baby towards four plus hours of sleep weren't present.
And then there was the sartorial snag. On Sunday night, Chaya kept rolling over onto her belly. Which means she can no longer be swaddled. At least not if we care about her safety. So last night we tried the Merlin's Sleep Suit, which is kind of like a mix between an astronaut's kit, a self-defense dummy, and a giant banana (there's always money in the banana baby). Andrew found this particularly hilarious, probably based on the absence of solid sleep for any of the (W)right household. Poor Chaya was moderately offended I'm sure.
We tried the sleep suit for roughly long enough for Chaya to get really into nursing in our bedtime ritual, at which point, Andrew returned to the room with extensive reservations about the sumo banana suit. I guess you're not supposed to use them if baby is rolling onto her stomach (technically if baby is rolling onto her stomach in the suit, which I guess is supposed to be much harder and kind of the point of the suit... but whichever). I pulled her from nursing and he decided to wrestle her from the suit (no easy task) and put her in the world's most challenging sleeper pajamas.
I think perhaps we missed that Cry-it-out isn't actually supposed to begin by making your child cry.
Ah well.
I sang down an hysterical half dressed baby until she was ok with nursing again, and the nighttime ritual continued unabated. Afraid of Chaya's typical nightly meltdown, Andrew may have read through her evening book apace and skipped any other formalities.
She was in bed and ready for the action by 7:30. She talked to herself for a good fifteen minutes from her crib. She cried a good not-quite-ten. And she was out.
For two hours. Which was long enough for me to go in and feed her. She cried again after I put her back in her crib, but again not for particularly long.
She slept for another two and a half hours. Again enough time to feed her when you consider the time it took to nurse her in the first place and then for her to fall asleep.
When I came in and went out, there was a lot of movement. Not having that sleep sack was definitely disruptive. But not so much so that she didn't at least have a good three and a half hour sleep after this. Another feeding was followed by plaintive but fleeting fussing. Followed by an hour. Some fussing. Some quiet. Some more fussing and even enough crying that Daddy consulted his timer watch. More quiet.
ALARM!! Daddy is done with this Ferberization as of this morning. He's off to go ski with his family. Then again, since mommy's mostly been the one doing the visits (since Chaya hasn't gone long enough for the interval check ins the last two nights), this is less terrifying than it could be. He had a morning flight, so up he got in between Chaya noises.
She wasn't exactly asleep but she wasn't complaining too much either. Eventually she did start calling out and I got her just before seven to see daddy off.
She's exhausted still. I get the feeling this is not the most restful of sleep, although it wasn't all that restful before either. She may also be catching up on a pretty longstanding deficit. Whatever else, she zonked in the boba (because I am still using my daytime nap-crutches thank you much) and really had a hard time waking up after two hours.
Last night was pretty ok, but definitely tougher than the second night. I have no idea what tonight holds in store for me, although the idea that she could regress with one big extinction burst pairs well with the awareness that I'm all on my own tonight.
I have it on good authority that daddy has made it to Oakland and is happily on his way to a ski vacation. Mommy and baby are well on their way to Ferber day Four: Ferbmaggeddon. In theory, most babies start sleeping "well" by this point. If not, well we ought to give it a week. If still improving, we keep giving it a little more time to the intervals we aren't hitting already. If things are going downhill fast, then we find some other part of the book and reconsider. Seriously hoping that we meet some metric of "well" tonight just cause.
It is going to be some long intercom-watched weirdness this evening. But I did get a pretty adorable baby this lunchtime waking period, so something's working. Maybe just my sterling genetics! They can't hurt!
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