sleep training
I like to be tired (and just a little bit drunk) when I fly. This explains why we'd often take the red eye to and from California--my sleep induced haze has a way of abating my death fears enough for me to be comfortable, because I'd figure, "Yes, I could die, but at least I'll get some really good rest!"
All of this to say, I love me some sleep! I'm a I-can-survive-on-6-to-7-hours-a-night-but-ideally-need-8-to-8.5-hours kind of person. And ultimately you have to ask yourself, do you want the surviving Sarah, or do you want the thriving Sarah? (So in the summer when I don't have to wake up at 6:30 to take the kids to school, I'm an absolute delight.) We all have different sleep thresholds. I know Greg can survive on 6 hours quite well, and I used to work with a lady who would sleep only 4 hours a night. What?! I don't understand this, but I've got to believe it's a genetic predisposition and perhaps, a stark hormone imbalance.
When I had babies, the hardest change for me was the lack of sleep. As in, the first 6 weeks with Kate, I probably got 1-2 hour intervals of sleep at a time. It was akin to torture at the tiny hand of my cute little baby. I remember driving her to the doctor and not being able to see straight due to the sleep depriviation. I told myself over and over that I just had to survive and she would sleep eventually, no? I read a couple books on sleep training, and when Kate was 3 months old we decided we'd let her cry it out. So, one fateful night we put her in her crib, turned off the lights, and shut the door. The book said to wait 20 minutes, and if she was still crying, to go in, comfort her without picking her up, then leave again, and repeat and voila, she'll fall asleep. Well, Kate cried loudly for 1.5 hours. I was scouring the book for what to do if it lasted that long, but apparently the good doctor had never encountered such a situation, so we went in and rescued her (she was pretty ticked off by that point). Eventually, (and I can't quite remember how but I'm sure there were some tears involved) Kate started sleeping on her own, and through the night, and I turned back into a normal human being. Naps, however, were always a crap shoot, but my theory with children and sleep soon became, "I don't care what or where or how they nap during the day, as long as they sleep well at night!"
With Elia, I was a little more realistic with expectations, but had come to learn that an overly tired kid can't fall asleep as well. So, if your baby has a poor day- time nap, they need to go to bed an hour earlier than normal at night. I remember telling my (wise) friend Robin that Elia was starting to wake up at 5:00 every morning, and she asked what time I was putting her down. I said, "5:30 because she's not napping well during the day!" I'd figured if one hour early was good, two hours early was even better. Not my best work, but I quickly adjusted and we were back to a more reasonable wake-up time.
Fast forward ten years, and we're all sleeping in our own beds (mostly––Elia does like to crawl into bed with various people) and falling asleep on our own fruition. I'd call that successful parenting on our part!
The idea that we have to "train people how to sleep" is kind of ridiculous. I mean, we all know how to fall asleep, right? But I guess the issues arise when some people can't put themselves to sleep, or require some white noise, lavender scents, pitch dark, a medley of 12 songs, and the stars to align before they can do so. And you can see how this could be problematic as an adult or even a college kid with four roommates. So you can imagine my surprise when just now, in research for this, I read an article by Psychology Today that said to NEVER SLEEP TRAIN A CHILD as babies are meant to have endless human interaction and touch as needed. Can I just say, "What the--?!" I touched my kids practically 24/7 for the first 6 weeks, and 15/7 the next three years, but there comes a point where you will lose your mind if you don't get some good sleep, and how beneficial is that for the baby? I'm not anti co-sleeping, but I myself have never slept well doing it, as I find it hard to relax when fearful of crushing or suffocating a baby, or laying next to a husband who would continually wake up in a cold sweat yelling, "Where is she?!" So I guess when it comes to sleep and babies, my advice is to do the best you can with the baby you have, and just try to make it so they don't become a psychopatic insomiatic killer. (Which, really, should be a universal goal, if you think about it.)
The reason I'm thinking about sleep, is that we have a new baby: meet Stella Rae Schemper. She is an
eight week old Chug (half Chihuahua, half Pug) and has been living with us for two weeks, and we are in love! But she is still a baby, which means we've been doing some potty training and sleep training, and it's bringing a lot of memories back. (Stella is not as bribable as my girls were with potty training.) I am willing to wake up once at night to take her out, cause her bladder has got to be the size of a pea--I'm just assuming, she's TINY. But the good thing is, I now know that if the baby is dry and fed, there is no reason not to turn on a fan in one's bedroom so you can't hear the crying.
Amazingly enough, Stella is already sleeping through the night, which just goes to prove that the third time is the charm...or maybe I'm just getting really good at this sleep training thing? Either way, I'm happy, and I'm super glad we don't have to have a tiny puppy in-between us in bed, as she likes nothing more than play-biting in the morning, and play-fighting with Greg at night. Greg's been growling at her ever since our friend Sarah said you need to show puppies who the "alpha male" is (just in case the towering 160 pound lead Greg has over Stella left any doubt). Maybe we should have tried that with our kids. I guess if our girls' teenage years prove tough, I will have to take up growling to prove my alpha status. And I'm totally willing to do that, just so long as they're still sleeping through the night!
