life serial

Discussion with husband re: how to spend “date night” tonight while my parents are babysitting the boy…

Me: Hot tub place or movie? Which do you prefer?

Him: I’m not going to say. I want you to decide. Just don’t obsess about it.

Me: That would be your preference?

Him: Yes.

* * *

Scott comes home from work, I’m in tears.

Him: What is it?

Me: The “Baby Whisperer” says I’m supposed to be able to put the boy down and have him fall asleep on his own. That I’ve been doing this all wrong with swaddling/rocking/jostling/humming him to sleep. That we’re going to regret this, that he’ll be dependent on it. But I tried her way and it didn’t work. And she says he has to be in a dark room. No noise. That we’ve essentially been putting him down to sleep in the equivalent of a shopping mall.

Him: I’m going to burn that book. Nothing good has ever come of it.

* * *

 

How do you DO sleep?

I like my Life Serial posts to have a certain style and rhythm (short, dialogue heavy) but I can’t let the Baby Whisperer book go into the flames without a little more discussion.

A few things positive I’ve gotten from that book:

Her EASY acronym (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You-time) — I use it like a mantra through my day to a) remind myself the boy needs to nap — something I didn’t “get” at first, and b) to at least *think* about getting to do something for myself.

“Tank him up” before bedtime — This we were already doing, or rather he was cue-ing us to do; theoretically if he eats frequently before evening sleep, he’ll stay down longer. Ditto the sleep-nursing — BW’s idea that he doesn’t have to wake all the way up in the night to nurse (and consequently neither do I). I haven’t been able to actually just put my boob in his mouth without disturbing him as he usually politely requests a diaper change, but the side-lying nurse-napping that we’ve been doing lately in the early morning hours seems to have salubrious effects for both of us.

What wasn’t soooooo helpful was the night, early in his young life, when we tried to decipher his miserable endless crying by using her various charts of body language, sounds, breath patterns, etc. Just couldn’t get it. Like trying to take the final exam without ever having attended the class and borrowing someone else’s cheat sheet an hour before to study.

How we DO sleep now:

9 or 10 a.m. ish: Sometimes in the morning he naps. This happens when he falls asleep after a nurse, or in the bjorn as I’m trying to get us out the door for an appointment/class, generally this nap occurs on his own, without my trying to make it happen. (For example, right now, he’s passed out on my lap after nursing. I’m reaching over his body to type on the laptop.)

From 11 to 1 or 2: Nap may or may not start in this window. Many days, this afternoon nap lasts for 2-4 hours. Many days, it doesn’t happen at all. If it doesn’t, he might do 4 hours from 5-9 instead. Or not. This daytime nap is usually assisted by me actively wrapping him up in a carrier, bouncing, and singing (alphabet song is my current favorite, but the capacity for the Cal Drinking Song to put him to sleep still amazes and entertains me). But then yesterday, he fell asleep on his own after nursing during yoga class, and slept right through going out to a restaurant with the grandparents for lunch (making up karmically speaking for yesterday’s midday pooptastic performance.)

4-7 p.m. : Might nap or not. Efforts to put him down usually yield about 20-45 minutes of sleep. Unless he’s been awake all day. Then he’ll sleep long enough for me to make dinner, but wake up in time to prevent me from comfortably eating it.

7-10 p.m.: Nurse frequently.

Sometime between 9 and 10 p.m. — Goes to sleep, often after a good round of the rock/swaddle/sing/shooshing. Stays asleep 3-6 hours.

Middle of night — Up for diaper change, one hour of nursing, then back to sleep for 2 hours.

6 a.m. ish — side-lying nap-nurse, one hour.

After 7 a.m.: Playtime begins.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

(And all of this happens generally in a not-dark room, often with TV or radio playing. But Scott can fall asleep anywhere, so maybe the whole “shopping mall” thing is genetic.)

In writing it out like this, his sleep schedule actually sounds quite fine to me. Not sure now what I was worried about. Except maybe as he gets bigger, it might be nice to be able to put him down without all the rocking and bouncing…? Maybe I’m just looking for control again. An off switch. Something to make me a little less weighed down by the weight of him during the day.

I may take a look at the Babywise book, and No Cry Sleep Solution — I suspect these offer opposite views.

Or maybe I’ll just muddle along.