the sleep consultant experience continued (hook removal)

Are you experienced?

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

So, where was I? Oh yes, we saw her again on Tuesday. This time, Jonah came with us. It was kind of an observation visit. We were not going to discuss anything difficult or heavy or make any plans in front of him because clearly he understands every freaking word we say. We came, we sat in her play room, the boy played with some of her AWESOME toys, commented on them, etc. Asked if he could look around the living room (she works out of her incredibly beautiful tudor mansion) and she took him for a tour. He was very impressed with her “Seee shaeyelle” collection.

She commented on his style of interacting with the toys and objects, how he’d get involved with something, go to something else, come back to the first thing. And how completely excited he got when Scott put together the wooden train tracks and set out some cars. Jonah played with the train for a while and then just stood back, stomped his feet and waved his arms and grinned. Pure joy.

She loaned us a book she’d written about living with your one-year-old. But he’s 19 months, I protested. He’s one until he’s two, she said. Read the section on oppositional behavior, she said. He’s not there now, but he will be. She also gave us a very wide-eyed look (in light of said impending oppositional behavior) when we said we are going to Hawaii in September. A look that said, “Alrighty, good luck with that.” What she said out loud was, I can see how he’s been such a great traveler up to now.

Are you saying that we’re crazy for doing this? I asked. I think she may have actually said Good Luck out loud at that point, and You’ll Need It.

No, she didn’t say that. I exaggerate. She was pleasantly supportive of our impending doom.

Anyway, we’ll see.

I read the book in two days. The point about the oppositional thing was for us to get the message that soon he’ll say “no” to everything, pretty much just to say no. That he’ll upset himself in ways that we’ll never understand and he may not even understand. Tantrums ahoy! That it’s going to be hard on us, but will go easier if we prepare ourselves with the knowledge that it’s not personal, it’s just his job to individuate.

As she said in our appointment today, if he doesn’t throw tantrums, then we should worry. You know, like those kids who are all sweet and well behaved in high school and then go nutso in college.

Today’s appointment was the wrap-up, final assignments appointment.

Since the first appointment, those first two nights of Jonah’s adjusting, and the third night of his quietly going to sleep in his crib, bedtime has basically been a piece of cake. (Knock wood, internet gods please do not rain bad nights on us again for my saying something so boldly, amen.)

But for that cake, Scott has to sit in that glider for about half an hour while Jonah falls asleep. Tonight we started the next phase, where Scott tells Jonah he’s going to leave the room and come back in five minutes. Of course Jonah didn’t like that and he cried when Scott left. It wasn’t very convincing crying though. He didn’t sound scared or sad, just annoyed. Uunnh uhhnh uhhnh. The rule is that if he cries (as he did) Scott stays out for more like 3 minutes and then tries again. After two tries, he just sits and waits for the boy to fall asleep. So that’s how tonight went. We’ll see if it gets any better as the new technique continues.

The other option she’d offer is the chair shuffling thing where each night you move the chair farther from the crib till you’re in the doorway and then finally out in the hall. Scott didn’t think Jonah would go for that one. Too interesting, he said.

Regarding naps: Never underestimate the power of the written word, as I’ve underestimated mine apparently. These posts get sucked into my Facebook page, allowing my non-blog-reading family and friends to see what the heck I’m talking about here and comment. A few of them expressed so much sympathy and concern over the previous post that I am wondering if I make things sound really horrible. They’re not. Not that I mind sympathy and love. Bring it on.

But we did need a nap plan and so we’ve made one. For now, and until we get back from Hawaii, we’re going to continue to use the car and stroller as the methods for getting him to fall asleep midday. On days when it doesn’t work, we can try again in an hour, and again an hour after that. Bottles allowed, of course. Interestingly, today with the nanny he didn’t fall asleep on the first drive but did drink up all his milk. His second car trip of the day she gave him water in the bottle and he fell asleep with that which helps in terms of any concerns we may have about tooth decay that I just developed in the last two days from reading her book. I hadn’t realized that milk pools behind the teeth when a child falls asleep with a bottle — I had thought that was only the case when the bottle is “propped-up” on a pillow. Then again, since our boy continues sucking on the empty bottle for about 10 minutes after he falls asleep, he’s probably not harboring a pool of anything in his mouth.

When we get back from our vacation, we will use the nighttime strategies at nap time. We need to commit a good two weeks to getting him to fall asleep for his nap IN the crib before we can add in a day of car falling-asleep here or there. Converse of trying to add a crib nap into his current rolling regime is not considered a recipe for success.

I forget what she said about letting me be the one who puts Jonah to bed. I think it was that once he’s comfortable with Scott leaving the room before the boy falls asleep, then I can try the routine. Scott knows. He’s in charge of bedtime now.

We also talked in this last appointment about how we might get me to worry less. At lunch, before our appointment, Scott had asked me, Is there anything anyone can say that will help you let yourself off the hook?

And going all the way back to that moment, 1-1/2 weeks ago, when I stood in front of Scott and announced that there was nothing he could say to console me, that I wanted an expert to come down and tell me that I’m not harming my child, and tell me what to do next; in this last meeting, I got that.

Something she said, in reference to something else we were discussing, about how babies under one year cry because that is the method they have for expressing themselves, and how in certain situations they will cry no matter what you do. A light went off in my head. This is why I was willing to do CIO when he was younger, but not in the last few months. Even though I hardly embraced the technique, in the times when I was pushed to the point of doing it, I recall him sounding pissed off; but in recent months, the crying sounded more scared. Separation anxiety. I wasn’t willing to leave him alone to cry anymore because it didn’t feel right on a gut level. She confirmed that this makes sense developmentally-speaking.

I almost heard the pinging sound of the hook being removed.

So, sometimes I can let myself off the hook if I get new information that makes sense to me, somehow confirms my intuition. An expert gave me news that helped me feel like I have not in fact harmed my child with my parenting choices.

She said it was a good sign that I WANT to be let off said hook.

I told her how you can boil my obsessive mind down the the Robert Frost poem, The Road not Taken. And even though I know the poem is really about how you can take either road, I can’t help referring to the more common misperception, that there’s one perfect road, one that’s better than the other.

How will I not feel guilty and scared about every choice I make? Well, she does offer hypnosis if I decide I need it. In the meantime, I’ll do what I do. I’ll write about it, I’ll talk about it, I’ll meditate, I’ll research, I’ll try not to worry so much.