The Sleep Blog

I keep telling myself to blog about all of Ben's sleep issues so that I will have a written memory of it to look back on. There is so much to say about it that I have procrastinated doing it, but I'm doing it now while my babies are both asleep, Ellen is on my tv and I'm making some mac n cheese for an afternoon snack. Surely someone will wake up before I even get started.

Correction - Nate just woke up. We will try to nurse, watch Ellen, eat mac n cheese and blog all at the same time. Don't think I can't do it!

2nd correction - Ben woke up! What? Back to this later.

It's later...

From the beginning of his life Ben has been an excellent sleeper. We would put him down awake and he would fall asleep and sleep great. Life was good. And then we were crazy enough to try to put him in a big bed at around 18 months. We gave it a good try, but he would not stay in his room and cried and cried and we all lost a lot of sleep. I gave up.

Then, not long after Nate was born Ben was very angry during a nap (can't remember why) and he climbed out of the crib and landed on his head. I heard the thud and saw the red mark on his head. That was the end of the crib and the beginning of a very long battle.

We converted his crib into the toddler bed, hoping it would provide him with familiarity but still be safe. He would not stay in his bed. He went one week straight without napping at all (he was still taking 2 naps of 2 hours each). You can only imagine the crankiness in this house with a newborn and no sleep for a toddler or time away from Ben for me. We resorted to sitting on the floor by his bed and patting his back until he fell asleep. He would even ask for more pats if we stopped before he was asleep. For the sake of all our sanity, we kept doing this just so that he would sleep. It would take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour just to get him to sleep. That became very interesting when trying to time Ben's nap and Nate needing to eat or go down for a nap too. Ryan was extremely gracious and would help me as often as possible since he works from home many afternoons.

After a few weeks of that we got to the point that we could sit by his bed, but not have to touch him or talk to him at all and he would fall asleep. But, I remember sitting there one day and he was refusing to lay down and I got so frustrated that I just walked out of his room with him wide awake. He cried maybe five minutes and went to sleep. It was a miracle!

From that day on we put him in his toddler bed and he slept! But, Nate needed the crib (we were borrowing a friend's crib for Nate) and we had a perfectly good bed for Ben that he needed to sleep in. So, we dug in deep and went for another bed transition and were met with equal resistance. Stubborn kid!

We were back to laying on his bed beside him, patting sometimes. It would take 30 minutes to an hour to get him down. And he was up again during the night. Most nights he would sleep a good chunk, but then wake up in the wee hours of the morning. We would take turns crawling into bed with him and staying until he was asleep. It worked, but not for our sanity.

We started sitting on the end of his bed, but not laying down. Then we moved to sitting by the door. Then, finally we just laid him down with a firm reminder that he is not to get off his bed and left the room. He mostly stayed, but some days/nights he cried and would come out of his room.

It has been seven months since we started this process (with a 3 month break) and only now are we feeling like we are in a good place. He has just recently started taking good, 2-3 hour naps again. He is not getting up in the night anymore. I feel like a different mom.

[Now it has been 24 hours since I started this post. Maybe I can finish this time.]

We bought a Kids' Sleep Clock and we think it is helping. It has two alarms, one for nap wake time and one for morning wake time. When Ben is supposed to be sleeping there is a picture of a bunny asleep that is lit. Then, when it is ok for Ben to be up the picture of the bunny with a backpack out playing is lit. We named the bunny Dubbers and so we talk a lot about Dubbers around bedtime. We show Ben the light and ask, "What is Dubbers doing?" Ben: "Dubbers is nite nite." Us: "So, what does that mean Ben is supposed to do." Ben: "Me nite nite." It has made going to bed so much easier. We are still working on the waking up part. He gets up before the light changes sometimes and will tell us, "Me's light on!" We know it's not! We are currently trying to take him back to his room and get him to stay until the light comes on. On days that he takes a 3 hour nap he wakes up happy and all is well. When he doesn't sleep that long he wakes up so cranky and takes forever to come around. I don't know what to do about that. It is a work in progress, but we are miles ahead of where we were a few months ago.

Speaking of a few months ago...I never really understood just how much sleep deprivation can affect me. I knew in theory that it can really play with your mind, but I didn't feel that tired. There were nights that Ben was up more than he slept and then the pressures of having a newborn (who slept through the night, but it is just draining in general) added up to a rough few months. I was really starting to worry about my emotional well being, but I wasn't connecting it to the lack of sleep. I think having a baby in the winter was hard for me too - it is just gloomy and too cold to get a baby out too much so I stayed in the house a lot more than I'm used to. Just when I was really getting worried about myself Ben started sleeping better and some spring weather appeared. My troubles seemed to disappear. That is when I decided that the lack of sleep was causing me not to feel like myself.

Even though I am sure that there will be more phases and more nights without sleep, I am so happy to have made it through this phase. "When Mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy" was too true of these last few months and I am thrilled to feel happy again! It has helped tremendously to have Ryan be extra compassionate and help with the big and the small stuff to make my life a little easier and Nate is just the easiest baby that there ever was. I like to think God gave Nate his sweet disposition as a gift to me since Ben was going to try to push me over the edge. I am most grateful!