Sleepless/Seattle

We had a great meetup here in Seattle last night. There were around 15 women who came, with or without kids, to have dinner at the Seredipity Cafe. (Which was excellent, we thought. Mmmm, mac and cheese with truffle oil...)

We talked about a bunch of things, ranging from food allergies to couples' therapy to baby signing to food and politics. But one thing we talked a lot about was sleep.

I've been saying for years that I think sleep is our generation's thing. Our big problem, and the thing that seems to hurt us most and make us feel most inadequate. Past generations had different things--my grandmother was upset that my dad wasn't potty-trained by the time he was a year old, for example. But sleep is ours.

I think there are several reasons for that. Probably the single biggest one is that we don't put our kids to sleep on their stomachs. Our parents put us down on a full belly and we'd fall and stay asleep easily. Since we know we can't do that because of the SIDS risk, we lack the one surefire trick past generations used to use. (I also think this is why we don't get much sympathy from older generations about the sleep thing, because they just didn't experience the same number of problems we did.)

Another factor is that past generations were more likely to have an adult at home during the day, which meant there wasn't that same crazy pressure to get everything Perfect before maternity leave ended. Past generations were also more likely to live closer to home, and have family support. Lots of us now don't have any kind of safety net, and are doing it all alone or close to alone. That makes the sleep thing more high-stakes.

And yet another factor is that we have so many more "experts" now. In the past, there was basically Dr. Spock and maybe one or two others. So if what he wrote didn't work for your kid, you just confronted the Dark Night of the Soul of being a parenting failure, made peace with it, and moved on.

Now, if you absolutely can't conform to what an expert says, you feel like a failure, but you move on to another expert, and the cycle begins afresh. How many times have you heard "Weissbluth made me feel like a failure and Pantley was totally useless but the Sleep Lady Shuffle saved me!" or "Dr. Sears can suck it but Ferber changed my life!"? So much drama, trying to follow someone else's Method. If you'd just been allowed to trust yourself, and given a list of possible things to try, you'd have gotten there in the same amount of time, but feeling empowered by your ability to figure your own kid out. (this is also why there's such passion about CIO vs. not--if everyone just was allowed to figure it out for their own kid without feeling like it indicated anything about them or the kid, it wouldn't be such a huge symbol of everything that we all had to get defensive about.)

Any thoughts? Lamentations? Words of hope for those in the trenches? Other hypotheses?

Comments

[hedra]

I was just thinking about this, as a friend noted that they did one night of CIO (essentially) at ~8 months old for a habitual waking-to-snack (but not really EAT) problem - and it worked, and she wished she'd tried it sooner, and... and I still knee-jerked into trying to make her feel better about having figured out her own path, which then I think confused her because, er, she seemed to be actually okay with it in the first place.

Oy.

But it made me think - not just about the 'why is sleep OUR CRISIS' but also why we check our timing so much. A part of it definitely is the WHEN. When do they sleep through? My baby isn't sleeping through YET. There's a linearity to the expectations - that they will start at X age and then stay in that state forever. No regressions! No no no.

I think that we've added the ever-onward, ever-upward, space-race, technology-advance, improve-upon-improvement concept to our psyches, and we apply it to our kids. I even encounter educators that don't know that development can be step-wise, and that there can be (GASP) a backtracking on previously mastered skills as a new set of skills is coming on board. We say 'two steps up and one step back' but we mean 'backsliders are going to hell!' Reality is that we develop in that up-and-then-retreat manner. Kids develop more independence, then come running to touch down for comfort, then try it again. Cycle, spiral, corkscrew, whatever - it isn't linear.

So add that into the set of factors, I think - the expectation of linear improvement is part of our technology-based culture, and is applied to biological systems inappropriately.

[Wendy]

I think the problem with sleep stuff is that we have so little control, despite our best intentions. Making it worse is that sleep happens in the middle of the night when we are tired, less coherent, more easily frustrated, etc. Plans go out the window and then in the morning there is guilt, regret, should've, would've, tonight I will...., I will never again....

[Suzie Q]

Um, big sleep lamentation here. We've got the nighttime stuff down (knocking on wood even as I type this), but cannot break the 1 year old Pumpkin of the habit of wanting to nap in someone's arms. I'm embarrassed to even let the secret out, as no one beyond our innermost circle knows. Sometimes she'll let the babysitter put her down, or my mom; but with me, it's a nap while being held or nothing. I honestly don't see how we're ever going to get past this, and I'm reluctant to go down the sleep training road (even though I think that's where we're headed). It makes me feel so ridiculous that I can't even put my baby down for a nap... Oy. Just needed to vent.

[enu]

I don't think the Back to Sleep campaign can be the biggest factor - after all, it only really contributes to the very earliest months (pre-rolling over.) And people seem to suck those up, but when it goes on for months and months and months.... In 1989 they were still saying you should put your baby to sleep on her belly to prevent SIDS ;-) I still had a truly lousy sleeper - she was quite capable of wailing belly down. But by 3 months she could wail in whatever position she preferred...! OTOH my second was the amazing sleeping baby. And belly sleeping may have contributed to that.

Also, we had plenty of conflicting experts even in the dark ages. I was given an entire library of parenting books by a librarian friend of mine, and tried to follow all of them ;-)

Words of hope? Eventually one of two things will happen. Your child will learn to sleep through the night or she won't but it will NO LONGER BE YOUR PROBLEM. Well, okay it will still be your problem a little bit (she may call you to whine about it from across the globe...) but it won't make _you_ lose sleep. I think that's a huge part of the issue. Would you mind having a baby who didn't sleep through the night if YOU got a solid 7 hours? Not so much, I think! That sounds hard hearted, but you know, babies can catch up during the day....

[pennifer]

I think you must be right about better sleep for earlier generations. And that infant potty-training was a bigger issue.

There were probably a lot of "experts" in the form of other community members, which had its own pressures...

Word of hope: I'm excited to finally report that I think we've made lasting changes in our non-sleeping boy's sleep. He just turned 11 months and has finally begun sleeping decent stretches of 4-6 hrs at a time. This from a boy who regularly nursed every 1.5-2hrs straight through to 9 months.

We co-sleep and, despite the fact that Kaiser's lactation consultant said it wasn't possible, we have almost entirely night-weaned. A "no nursing in bed ever" rule seems to have made the difference.

Next step, getting him to sleep in his own room. I'm guessing that's going to make me want to stick a fork in my eye, as Moxie is wont to say. He naps in his cribs and sleeps in it 6-10pm when we go to bed, but beyond that he protests mightily. With any luck, after a few nights of hell, he'll give in to sleeping in the crib.

And yes, sleep has definitely been my albatross. I read a few of the books early on and periodically talk to friends who have read others, but I have found it much easier to just listen to my intuition and keep a mild awareness of the theories out there.

And yes again, there has been some CIO, mostly modified with small visits for reassurance, but a few infrequent hard-core sessions when Mama Just Couldn't Take It Any More and CIO was the kinder option.

[Cobblestone]

I read this, then saw this article about sleep and teenagers. http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2008/10/28/dealing-with-sleep-loss-in-teens/
So, apparently, the plan is to be anxious about sleep until they are in college now ...

I'm so happy to have gotten my primary sleep information from here, and summed up in the words, "by any means necessary". When my MIL was letting me know how much I was wrecking my 10 week old I just kept thinking that she only gets an opinion when she is in the middle of a 3a shift.

[enu]

@Cobblestone - yep - we ferberized the baby at 16 years or so. It worked great, btw...

[Kate]

What hedra said. Sleeping is not linear. At all. It bad and better and bad and good and horrific and ok. In the space of a few days/weeks/months, rinse and repeat. And eventually the good stretches get longer.

There might be a magic bullet to make it better, but you won't know what it is until you're already upon it. (For my daughter, it was being potty trained--from being up 1-2 times a night, crying, to sleeping 12 hrs straight.)

I think you just have to go with what works, you know? Don't share with people who will think you're crazy.

My kids hated hated hated sleeping in a crib. #1 was awful to share a bed with, so she spent ages 9 months to 15 months sleeping on our bedroom floor. #2 wakes up between midnight and 6 am (different time every night--right now it's on the early side because I think his molars are waking him up) in his bed in his sister's room and comes running into my room, clambers into my bed, and goes back to sleep without any intervention from me. He likes to have warm body near him, and he's polite co-sleeper. We're not fighting it. 'Cause he's 2. It's not forever.

My son likes company to go to sleep for the night. I'd love to not spend that 20/30/40 minutes in the dark, messing up my own sleep (my husband will do it if he's home), but this is just something that we're not ready to throw down on with him. Eh, second child. Parents: too lazy. Nobody's the worse for wear.

[MLB]

I have been relatively lucky in the sleep department with my three, but I generally have no opinion on how other families deal with this. I am always surprised at the number of people who have such strong opinions on things that don't affect them at all. However, in general, and I'm not talking about forums like this, I am equally surprised about people who complain about their situation and are not willing to try different things that might work. For example, Moxie you always talk about how your kids are very different sleepers. Why not try 5-15 minutes of crying if nothing else has worked, provided the child is old enough? It just seems strange to me that so many people have issues with behaviors and then refuse to try a solution.

Hope that makes sense - once again I am talking about in the larger world, not people seeking answers in groups like this.

[Anna]

I just asked my mom about this, 2 weeks into 4:30 am wakeup with an 18-month-old after waking up every hour all night hell. She had two fabulous, all-the-time sleepers and then one social, energentic, crappy-assed sleeper like my child. She's one of the few people who makes me feel better about the sleep thing aside from this website because she knows its not my fault, from experience.

She says, however, that it just didn't seem like THAT big of a deal because she napped every day with my little sister. She says she couldn't have done it if she worked OTH, which I do.

She and my dad had very seperate, very traditional responsibilities--he worked, she stayed home and took care of the kids and house. While I have deliberately chosen to do the polar opposite of this, I can see that it made things less complicated. My dad was well-rested; my mom was tired in the mornings but napped in the afternoons. None of this both of us stumbling around in the kitchen at 5 am trying to make coffee with a baby in one arm, hairbrush in the other, dog underfoot, everyone barking at each other.

Their life was slower, more peaceful from the onset. I think that made the sleepless baby chaos easier to deal with, for them.

I hope this doesn't sound like I am advocating stay-at-home roles for everyone, or saying that stay-at-home parents have it easy. I had a hard time in that role myself. It just worked out that way for my parents; they made deliberate choices to have the lives that suited them. And that just happened to enable regular, long naps for the primary caregiver!

[Fiona]

I think our own bad sleep habits contribute to the problem. Not only do we obsess about everything you identify (and I am so there with hedra, too), but we stress about our sleep habits.

And they're bad! As a society, we don't sleep well, we don't sleep enough, we don't feel good about our sleep or its duration. We over-caffeinate (me!me! I love my tea.) and then stay up late, etc. etc.

So I think part of the freakout is that we're fatigued before the baby comes along, then we add baby fatigue to the mix and then we stress about whether baby is sleeping right or we are and who is andandand...

We're lucky. Mr. PoopCannon sleeps a lot, and sleeps by himself. But the anxiety is always there, on sleep and so many other things, too.

[attiton]

Yes, if it isn't one thing, it's another. But those first few months are so HARD when you are juggling all sorts of emotions, issues and burdens...on NO sleep.

I think the lack of local family support was what really did me in. Well, that, and an unexpectedly intense bout of PPD (isn't it always unexpectedly intense?).

Attiton's thought for the day: When you hear other mothers putting down their parenting skills, why is that easier to hear then them just flat-out putting _themselves_ down? Why is, "I'm just not having any luck getting little Sally to sleep. I guess I must be doing something wrong," any different than, "I just can't seem to meet any of my goals. I must be a deficient person somehow"?

I'm beginning to think that we all presume we have too much control over our children's behaviors (and most situations), and the onslaught of parenting books does nothing to dissuade us.

[Michelle]

Totally agree about sleep not being linear. My kiddo was a perfect sleeper until 20ish months. Then he HATED the crib and shortly thereafter got an ear infection plus bronchitis and only wanted to be held by mommy. Yeah, that was not a fun couple of months. I think he mostly co-slept with us.

@ Suzy Q. Don't feel bad about your 1yr old wanting to nap in your arms. My nearly 2.5 year old toddler will not go down for the night unless either my husband or I lie with him for 10 minutes or so. We lay down on our bed, little one says "I luv you" and snuggles into my side. He drifts off to sleep in minutes and then I transfer the sleeping kiddo to his toddler bed for the duration of the night. Sometimes I think this is silly but then I remember that he will only be little once and I cut both of us a little slack because he's just 2.5 and this isn't going to last forever.

He does come into our room and climb into bed with us anywhere from 2 am to 5am. While I am not wild about co-sleeping, it just hasn't bothered me enough to change that. I could easily cuddle him for a minute and put him back to bed. But um, I'm tired and just take the path of least resistance. Again...he is 2.5 and this won't last forever.

For a while there I would freak the hell out that I cannot get the kid to sleep before 8:45ish (on a good night) or 9pm. But he takes a 2-3 hour nap a daycare, sleeps 9.5 hours at night and isn't cranky but generally easy-going and agreeable (terrible 2 tantrums not withstanding). So I FINALLY came to realize that this is what works for him/us and I should stop worrying about everyone else in the world getting their toddlers to bed sooner.

[Mom2Boys]

Here's my confession

Last night I reached my breaking point and it makes me so sad. T cried by himself in his crib for 27 minutes from 4:58 until 5:25...and then slept until 7:30. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I physically couldn't stand there and hold him while he slept. Taking him to my bed makes him mad and cry and fight me and I wasn't going to play in the living room with a sleepy, cranky baby who would just be miserable if he started his day at 5 in the morning with no nap in sight until 1:00 at daycare (because we've done it before, so I know). So after multiple put down cry/pick-up sleep/put down cry, I put him down for good and pulled up the side of the crib and he started to scream.
On guilt v. regret - this is real guilt/shame over my inability to figure this out. I wish I could do something to change it. Even though he fell asleep and woke up in a great mood - it's the feeling of standing there in the dark listening to him scream and cry that's with me and weighing on me. I can't shake it.
And yet I *know* that this is insignificant in the long run. And yet...

[wealhtheow]

I remember when we first did CIO with our guy. He was 3 months, it was 3 am, and we had tried everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING to get him to go to sleep. We finally just let him cry in the cradle in our room for about half an hour and he conked out. Now I'm able to listen to the little guy cry and can almost always tell whether he'll be out in 10 minutes or needs mummy (or daddy) for some love and reassurance before going back into the crib. We're very lucky--at almost a year he almost always sleeps through, usually waking up around 5 for some boob juice and then back down for another couple hours or so. But when he has a hiccup, I don't feel guilty for doing what I need to do to get us back on track, whether that's holding him and walking the halls in the wee smalls or letting him cry for 20 minutes. The way I see it, he needs sleep, I need sleep, but most of all, he needs me to have sleep. 20 minutes of crying in the crib won't mess him up--Mean Mommy all day will.

[Diane]

Suzie Q. - Oh I went through that too. Please don't feel embarrassed! When my daughter went through that, it was OVERNIGHT sleeping. She had to be in our arms or snuggled right next to us in bed for the entire night. It went on for a couple of months. We tried to fight it, but nothing seemed to work. I wish I could remember how old she was, but I think it was maybe 10-14 months? Now, at 26 months, she puts herself to sleep in her own bed at night and for naps. We thought this day would never come! We still have some wake-ups, but I'm so used to it at this point, I'll take what I can get.

Want to hear my humiliating secret that might make you feel better? We let her nap in her infant swing until she was probably 15 months old. She has always been tiny, so she wasn't over the weight limit, and it just worked. I was entirely too exhausted to care that it was the "wrong" way to do things, but oh the looks I'd get from people when they'd find out!

I think we all have these little parenting secrets that we are ashamed of, but we just shouldn't be. Who cares, in the long run. There aren't any teenagers who need mama to rock them to sleep! My mom used to act like we were nuts for holding our baby while she'd fall asleep at night at the ripe old age of 14 months. This was when I remembered that my brother, at age SEVEN, could not fall asleep at night unless he lay across our dad's lap while watching TV and having his back rubbed. So that was OK, but not holding an infant? (Don't even get me started on the "You'll never get her out of your bed" lectures. And even though she's a good sleeper now, in her own bed? I still get, "Well, I'm sure you learned from your mistakes with this one and won't repeat them with your next." UGH!) We all do what we've gotta do to get our sleep, so just own it. :)

[Andrea]

I don't have a hypothesis, but I just want to say THANK YOU. Your blog rescued me from a Guilt Coma after reading The Baby Book by Dr. Sears. I realize now I'm not raising a child who is destined to become a sociopath thanks to my not adhering 100% to his advice.

[Anna]

@ Andrea--"Guilt Coma," so funny! Unfortunately, I know it all too well...

[caramama]

It drives me crazy that the grandparents (especially my parents) are just so... amazed? flabbergasted? indignent? I don't know... something! about the fact that my daughter is such a poor sleeper. Both sets have told me that none of their children (three each) had any problems going to sleep. Honestly, I don't believe them. I think Moxie is right and that for some reason the lack of sleep just wasn't a big deal so they have forgotten just how bad it was. I mean, out of the total of six kids, how likely is it than not even one was a poor sleeper?

In fact, I remember having trouble sleeping a lot during my childhood (4 or 5 and up), so how likely is it that I slept well as a baby?

Also, I think that a lot of people used to lie about how well their children slept. I really do. It wasn't a big deal, so they either didn't talk about it or lied about it.

The Pumpkin is not a good sleeper, and we've tried everything but CIO (and neither she is nor I am a good candidate for CIO). Latest thing? At 19 months we've put her in a twin bed. It seems to be helping, but I never expect a magic cure for her. We've held her for too many naps to count, coslept with her for at least part of the night many more nights than not, and slept in the recliner with her one us. Randomly, she will sleep through the night with no problem. But there is no counting on it. Only thing I can count on is that my parents think she should be sleeping and that my husband will always be there to take a turn or take over if I'm losing it.

[A]

Last night I tried a new strategy with my non-sleeping 5 year old. She's recently been having a lot of trouble falling asleep (on top of her usual difficulty staying asleep), so I let her have a flashlight and some books in bed. She looked at the books and then happily fell asleep, but it was 9:30 by then. I know it's not really enough sleep for her, but it seems to be what is working for her, for the moment. Without the books, she'd probably fall asleep at about the same time (before 9pm is unusual for her) but I would be tearing my hair out trying to get her to BE QUIET and let sleep come. And last night, she slept all night without waking up! That is not unheard of but pretty unusual for her. So on one night's experience, I'm pleased and I'm writing mostly to say that the sleep challenges don't necessarily end with babyhood, but they change. Being able to discuss what might help and let her do some of the work is a wonderful change. When I suggested this plan, she did remind me that, "I don't know how to read, Mama!" so there is more change to come.

[Alexis]

I am VERY passionate about sleep and children. I work with families helping to improve the quality of the sleep of their children and routinely consult with the pediatric sleep specialist at the local hospital. Thus I have formed some pretty strong beliefs about the whole sleep issue.

1) Most children are chronically sleep deprived. And the sad part is that there is overwhelming evidence that shows that small reductions in sleep or interrupted sleep (ie waking up 3 times a night after the first 6-8 months) can have a significant impact. But nobody is talking about how much children need sleep or how important it is for us to help them get that sleep.

2) Little guys who get the sleep that they need are MUCH happier. Every family we work with reports the same thing after 3-5 days of good sleeping. "I can't believe this is the same child. He's so much more happy and alert! He babbles happily all day!" Or my personal favorite that I heard last week, "The less desirable behaviors that I had attributed to the terrible 2's simply EVAPORATED."

3) Day sleep and night sleep are all part of the same package. You can't just look at "how do I keep my child from waking up 3 times a night" without looking at how things are working around the clock. Sleepy children sleep poorly. A lot of people who are trying to figure things out with various books (and I've read THEM ALL) miss this important component.

4) I love about 85% of what Sears has to say. The remaining 15% has the unfortunate and I'm sure unintended consequence of making people feel guilty about their parenting (sadly I see this ALL the time). Sacrificing our health and sanity for what we perceive as our child's needs until we smoosh ourselves into a puddle of exhausted goo is NOT what Sears is trying to say.

5) For children who are old enough to sleep through the night, if you look at the WHOLE day and come up with a comprehensive plan that takes into account schedules, sleep associations, and sleep routines, CIO does not need to be some horrible traumatic experience for anybody. In my experience working with many families, the normal pattern is 30-40 minutes of protesting on the first night, 10 minutes the second, and none after that. In exchange you get a healthier, happier, well-rested child and I believe that this is a wonderful tradeoff.

I'm sure I've tweaked a few people on this site who don't share my beliefs on this. But sleep is really important. I also believe that good sleep (early bedtimes, uninterrupted nights, religious naps) really form a critical basis for happy kids. Everything else becomes so much easier once the sleep is under control.

Ok...getting off the soapbox. Waiting for flying tomatoes ;)

[TodayWendy]

@Mom2Boys - I am sooo familiar with that feeling you describe. It is possibly the worst, most horrible feeling I've ever felt. Good luck. You *will* get through it :) I had to just keep telling myself that "it will all be different in 2 weeks...even if things haven't changed, I'll be proud of myself for having survived 2 weeks of this!" I have no idea if that is an encouraging thought or not...but it sure helped me (and seems to be helping my cousin who is also in the middle of a giant sleep issue with her daughter).

[meggiemoo]

I'm in the group of parents with kids who are terrible sleepers. Now that my DS is almost 3 (and still rarely sleeps through the night all the way through), I've come to realize that there are different camps of poor sleepers.

1. Poor sleepers as infants, as almost all infants are before they can organize their nervous systems;

2. Poor sleepers who sleep poorly because of a temporary issue (illness, teething, new sibling, etc.);

3. Poor sleepers who will likely sleep poorly their whole lives because of how they're wired. My son falls into this group. He's on the autism spectrum with possible Asperger's Syndrome, and children on that spectrum have a difficult time falling and staying asleep. They don't get into REM sleep very easily, and don't stay there. This results in broken sleep, sleep deprivation and sometimes behavioral problems.

I guess I'm saying all of this because it's not just a simple issue..."If you did THIS, your kid would sleep." It's not always true, and it really has nothing to do with parenting choices or styles. I can no more change my child's brain chemisty than walk on the moon.

So if you have a chronic poor sleeper as I do, it might be worth it to look at other causes. Diet also can play a part. We're probably on the path to going gluten-free in our house.

I can only hope and pray that baby #2, due here in a few months isn't wired the same way!

[caramama]

Alexis - I just deleted the comment I was going to post. Instead, I just want to say that you make is sound like CIO is the only way to get them to sleep. I would just like to say that there are many other ways that have been used for millenia. There is no one-size-fits all when it comes to kids, especially their sleeping.

[Tzipporah]

I have never felt like such a personal failure as when baby wouldn't Sleep Through at 3 months. I cried through my entire birthday.

Thank god I found your blog around then (and the Zoloft and chocolate helped, too).

Now, at 2 years, I actually ENJOY getting to rock a sleepy guy in the middle of the night. Well, sometimes. Yay regressions.

[abby]

Moxie, as always, a thoughtful post.

my take is not that our parents did anything better, or that we are doing something wrong, but that many, many, many parents don't know what is 'normal' for a given age/developmental stage. When I talk to a mom of a 2 month old baby, going crazy with lack of sleep and lack of schedule, a significant portion of her frustration is misplaced. are there kids that sleep through at that age, yes. is it the norm, HELL NO! so, is the lack of sleep frustrating, yes, painful, yes, something that will pass for the most part, yes.

when I look back at my mother's generation in terms of parenting, I see a general sense of kids will be kids, that things are not static, and that they will eventually change. now, I see women feeling like they don't have the right to allow their children to go through each stage at their own pace. if the books say something should happen between 6 and 12 months, and your baby is 6 1/2 months and not doing it, doesn't make them delayed, this is just where they are right now.

eventually every child will sleep, yes we as parents can play a role in helping that to occur. but we don't do anyone any good by forcing our kids to do what they aren't ready for. I think the best book every parent can read it a developmental book, to know what we should expect at each stage, but to also read it with the understanding that every child is their own person and comes to the table with their own stuff,

Abby

[theklamsays]

Weighing in with my first ever Ask Moxie comment ... if anything can get me writing, it's sleep.

We have a terrible sleeper. It weighed so heavily on me and made me feel like a terrible mother until I came to terms with the fact that our beautiful, wonderful son just doesn't sleep well. And I can't thank Moxie, and everyone who contributes through their comments, enough for helping me get to that point. He's not wired for sleeping well at this point in his 9-month old life, and there is nothing I can do to change it. Accepting that this is how he is has made it so much easier to deal with the bad nights - it's just the way it is so let's just get on with it and make it through one night at a time.

The key for me was to redefine what "a good night" means for our family. It's not sleeping through the night. A good night is when our son sleeps soundly but wakes a couple of times for comfort (needs a rub on the back - we co-sleep so this is easy) and another couple of times to nurse (I barely have to wake up, just give him access to the boob and he does all the rest). By re-defining our sleep expectations to fit with OUR reality, rather than what our friends, family, co-workers, strangers, etc. think our reality should be, we have taken back control over our happiness as parents and as a family. We know we need to go to bed a bit earlier because there WILL be night wake-ups. We know we need to continue co-sleeping for the foreseeable future because it is easiest for responding to baby during night wake-ups. And most importantly it makes it so much easier to deal with the inevitable "Is he sleeping through the night yet?" question that we get asked all the time, a question that used to make me feel like a failure as a parent but now, just makes me laugh, shake my head, and give my little guy an extra tight hug because he's just fine the way he is.

[Alexis]

PS.
I just realized that my post may contributed to the "your child isn't sleeping thus you are a bad parent" guilt that I was trying to address. My apologies if it reads that way, I didn't mean it to.

There are always those blessedly lucky parents who get the baby who naturally sleeps 10-6 without waking at only a few weeks of age, who goes down for naps without a struggle, etc. And then there are the rest of us who have months or years of sleepless nights while we wrestle with our little guys and sleep. All I was trying to say was that sleep is really important and IF a few tears will help your child (and you) get better sleep all around, then go for it and God bless.

[sudru]

The sleep issue has been tough for me because now my sleep is now so screwed up. My 14 month old sleeps most nights now, but if I wake up during the night due to say snoring or purring, I can't get back to sleep. The other night beginning at 2am I filed paperwork, read, visualized oceans and streams but I couldn't get back to sleep. Ohh...and I used to be such a good sleeper, I do miss my sleep.

[Laura]

No tomatoes here, Alexis! :) I think you're right on, with the key being, as other people have mentioned, that we're ALL chronically sleep-deprived.

I feel like we've lost the margins in our lives.

My busy family's life is a delicately balanced house of cards and the stress caused by kids not sleeping can just be too much to bear. I wonder if our mothers' and grandmothers' lives were just better set up to accommodate infant and toddler sleep irregularities?

[Mom2Boys]

T slept with a hair dryer on for the first 8 months. We ran through three of them. He's never been attached to any sort of blanket or lovie but I've always had the same two blankets (I know blankets in crib - bad) in his crib with a little lamb blanket for a lovie. He also never took to using a pacifier. So far he refuses all external sources of comfort that the experts tell me will make it easier for him to self-soothe. It's me or bust for the Bean. We'll see how tonight goes.

Thanks for the words of encouragement. :)

[dubz]

Sorry Dr. Sears, but CIO rocks. We spent almost 5 months rocking and shushing our baby for hours on end, getting zero sleep, and feeling like it would never end.

Two weeks ago we just couldn't take it anymore, and gently put him in his crib to CIO. He cried for 40 minutes. It sucked, but now he falls asleep after about 5 minutes of fussing.

Our quality of life is SO much better.

The older my baby gets, the more I realize how right my parents are. Too much liberal B.S. has made us not trust our instincts. Every generation has a different method - you should be able to pick and choose the one that works for you without feeling like a loser.

[heather]

I totally agree with theklamsays: "The key for me was to redefine what "a good night" means for our family." YES!

I have friends whose kids slept 12 hours straight at 8 months. My daughter is 22 months old and usually wakes once during her 8-to-6:30 night. If I expect my kid to sleep 12 hours straight, I am bound to be disappointed. If I go to bed at a reasonable hour and expect to be woken up at midnight, I am not resentful when it actually happens. Now if I could only get the cats on my daughter's schedule...

[stacy]

Oh, the sleep issue. The only silver lining was having Moxie answer my desperate email and for once not feeling so alone and *weird* as all the comments poured in.

The older generation is a bit heartless about this, in general, but what bothers me more is my own generation. I can forgive that grandma forgot what it was like 40 years ago, or lied so much about how her baby was sleeping that she began to believe the lies over time. What I can't forgive is my brother giving me that "I doubt it" smirk when I tell them CIO didn't work for us, because his precious angel was sleeping through at 6 weeks, of course. Or my friend saying, "children can be trained to do anything, including sleep," when her precious angel was sleeping through from just about day one. And on and on - parents of perfect sleepers drive me totally insane, because they never seem to think they were blessed by fate or luck or God, but that their "good sleeper" is really a mark of good parenting. That their one damn hour of CIO was all it took, and why can't you do the same thing? What are you, stupid or just weak?

And if you have a kid like mine, who never slept at night, he's probably not going to sleep much during the day either, which doesn't help you catch a nap even if you do SAH. So you go crazy alone instead of in the office. Same problem, different devil.

Also, I hate the many people who don't take you seriously when you've said you tried everything. I've consulted sleep experts most of the know-it-alls have never even HEARD of, so enough about the fucking Babywise already.

My kid is almost 2, and though we've got nighttime down pretty good at last (THANK GOD), he's in his room SCREAMING right now because he doesn't want to nap. We go through this every day. If he doesn't nap, he's an absolute miserable terror to be around, and he screams. But he hates to nap so I put him down and he screams. Either way, my day contains a huge chunk of screaming. I have a headache all the time. And with a family hundreds of miles away, it's not like I can call my mother (well, she's a crazy alcoholic anyway, but assuming she was sane) to give me a break. I love my son, but I have yet to come to a point where I enjoy parenthood. Even though I'm blessed with a saint of a husband who does everything he can, parenting is still lonely and hard and frankly not very rewarding yet. And a lot of the reason why goes back to the issue of sleep, even though the worst of our problems are thankfully behind us.

So yeah. It's a big issue. I can see why it gets people so riled up.

[hedra]

@Suzie Q, lessee... Mr G slept on my lap a lot (overnights) around 2 years old. Me in the recliner. He had a spine issue and reflux, so there was an underlying condition involved. But still. And then Mr B, who either put himself down for a nap on the floor (on a mat) all on his own choosing, or napped on an adult body in a chair/recliner/sofa - no other options. GREAT at putting himself down for naps on the floor. Bed? NOOOOOO! Crib, pack-n-play, whathaveyou, NOOOOOOO! Mat, at mom's feet. Yes. Had to sleep in the middle of the action, or on someone. Okaaay. Whatever. And bedtime? Again, he was where the action was, and that ended up meaning we all went to bed at the same time, and the grownups just got up early instead of going to bed late.

Miss M and Miss R? Even the daycare provider, who got both the other kids to nap at her house, in her manner, at her timing? Nope. No go. Neither would nap for her. They were huge nap failures. They just stayed up and got cranky. Joy! or something.

My mom said we all napped well, all seven. We all potty trained early. Or the six healthy ones did. And she looked at my kids and said, 'here, let me try' - and I let her. She failed, too. No idea if it is light pollution at night, or less outside time in the day, or forced earlier rising, or color tv, or diet, or lifestyle, or what - but it is different, and she's admitted as much. She also admitted that us 'good sleepers' would only go to sleep if she contorted herself half-into the crib so that she could rest her cheek on our backs and press a hand on our heads at the same time. We'd sleep that way, eventually. Er, good sleeping, easy peasy. Back pain be damned.

I wonder if they just dropped the 'sometimes' in their memory. If I add that back on, most people's stories make a lot more sense... "my kids slept perfectly, sometimes" "my kids ate what I gave them and liked it, sometimes" "my baby sleeps for four hours straight during the day, sometimes" - see, now it reads as 'likely'!

Anyway, just nap the way they nap, and don't fear speaking about it - you'll find people more likely to come out of the woodwork with their own tale if you tell yours. Especially if you tell yours with a smile and a shrug.

And @mom2boys, I think you're still being too hard on yourself - give yourself permission to completely blow it in your own measure now and then. It's the B rule - a B is a mighty fine grade. Old scale, that's 80%. Which means that the other 20% you've completely and utterly missed the boat, failed, catastrophically splattered. It isn't 20% of the time we get partial credit for being mostly perfect. It is 20% total miss. Even if you're giving part credit on the rest of the time, there will (!!) be times were we do not meet our own ideals in any way shape or form. I did that this morning. It happens, often when I'm tired, often when I'm depressed, often when I've reached the end of my ideas and still don't have a solution. I just get up the next day, and try again, look for another answer, or grit my teeth and hope they grow past the issue soon. Sometimes the answer presents itself (in some margin or footnote or casual comment), and sometimes it doesn't. But in two weeks, everything will be different, and I'll have a new issue glaring me in the eye. If you put those I've-fallen-and-I-can't-get-up parenting moments into the category of 'proof that I'm human and imperfect and normal' instead of 'proof that I'm not as good-as-I-promised-myself-I'd-be' you can convert the guilt to regret again. Regret that we're human and have limited knowledge and no magic ball and no telepathy. Don't berate yourself for that one night (or the other day, or whatever) when you couldn't figure out what to do so did what you said you wouldn't do. Forgive yourself and your child for the fact that it appears to have worked, even when if you're like me you probably hoped that it wouldn't so you could safely never have even the slightest reason to try it again.

And remind yourself that it isn't about the disruptions in your relationship, the relationship is about the positive process that comes after. Like, me putting Miss M's coat on for her at school, gently and willingly and all, after having yelled at her that I wasn't going to help her get dressed for outside, at home - I was tired of helping, I ... er, I had a hairy tantrum at her. Yeah, not brilliant, out of resources, tired... and so later, I try again, and do different, even if not all the way better.

[professor mama]

Sears isn't working for us AT ALL.
What do you all think of Weissbluth? It's been recommended to me by two different people in the past week....

[Shandra]

I didn't completely stress over sleep but I also reaped the benefits of the 1-year-mat-leave so that probably has a lot to do with it. Even more though I have a sister 5 yrs younger than I am who was a terrible sleeper and I remember her being up all the time forever growing up, so I never had any expectations.

I have another couple of theories.

1. If one has a tension releaser/does well with CIO type (I do NOT), I'm guessing that the lack of baby monitors helped a lot because parents might not have woken up for some of the middle of the night crying.

2. Whiskey on the gums was more popular.

[SarcastiCarrie]

Grandparents lie (or they just forget).

I just want you all to know that.

And, I keep this rather quiet in real life, I have said it here a ton of times: I drove Chuckles in the car for his naps for a year. I didn't have to drive the whole time, just 5 minutes until he fell asleep and then moved him to his crib. Eventually, I just had to buckle him in to the car seat and sit in the garage for a few minutes and then move him. And he knew what was happening and would ask for his blankie to go to the car. He had a sleep association that I just couldn't break. Maybe I was weak, but whatever. He needed sleep or he was a miserably human being. He got his sleep (and I got my break). Win-win.

By any means necessary.

[Jojo]

I don't think much has really changed with the way that babies sleep. I think the expectation that babies actually sleep is more of the issue. We live in such a time constricted world now that we have to schedule everything down to the last minute. We work, we are busy, we don't get enough sleep as it is therefore the baby MUST SLEEP NOW.

I think another problem is the need for instant gratification. So what if your 1 year old can't nap anywhere on you? Trust me, this is not a permenant problem. My son did the same thing. Now, he's two and a half and I miss those lap naps so much.

I also wonder at times why we expect babies to sleep so well. I've spoken to a lot of adults that don't sleep very well either. It's pretty common. The only difference is that as adults, we don't need anyone to attend to us when it happens. And I KNOW that Dr Weissbluth says it's because our parents didn't make us sleep when we were 4 motnhs old, but he can stick it.

[paola]

I think people just remember the past differently to what it actually was. I know I do and my eldest kid is only 3 and a half. Over say 20, 30, 40 years, you can't help but remember things differently. In hindsight, things are definitely not as bad as they were, so your non-sleeping 9 month old, becomes a child that 'didn't sleep so well', and eventually may even become 'a not bad' sleeper over 2 or 3 decades.

That or maybe people did unintentially resort to something like CIO, as many of us still do, finding it did actually work.

[Charisse]

@Alexis, no tomatoes for suggesting CIO, but a little cherry one from me for not acknowledging that children have DIFFERENT sleep needs, and humans have different sensitivities to undersleep or oversleep (yes, the latter exists, I have the kid to prove it). Kids need enough sleep *for them as individuals* and more sleep is not always better for every kid. Not all kids fall apart if they're a little short on sleep (I know plenty who do, but mine is much better 2 hours short on sleep than one hour long!).

What I found most exhausting when my daughter was little was the constant chorus of "any problem with sleep must be due to not enough sleep" and "every kid is sleep deprived". Sorry, I call BS. Many parents are, some kids are, but it's not universal, and humans actually used to sleep very differently--uninterrupted nights as an expectation even for adults are an invention of the industrial age. See this very illuminating NYT magazine article called "The Sleep-Industrial Complex" from last year:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18sleep-t.html

(might require login)

...and now expecting some folks to throw tomatoes at me--I don't mean to get on my high horse either, but having a low sleep need kid (and being a lowish need person myself with low reaction to short sleep) the "everybody has to sleep more always" thing really frosts my shorts.

[Joy]

I have three kids, and all three had different issues relating to sleep. The details of each is really insignificant, and they were all heart- wrenching, desperately- grasping- for- a- solution times, but the important thing is that we got through them, and now they are but a faint memory.
My dirty secret is that I never read ANY books about babies. I don't know if that's good or bad. Thanks to my mom giving birth to twins when I was 11, I had lots of hands- on experience, I guess, and felt like I already knew what I was doing. And of course I read the things that the Pediatrician gave me, and the pamphlets from the hospital, etc., but not books.
The thing that worries me the most is that, with all of them, I've done a lot of co- sleeping, and they say that's 'bad', but in every cell of my being it feels like what I need to do for my babies. How can you deny a tiny person, who's been nestled so snugly in the softness of the womb for so long, the comfort of being next to you when that's all they seem to want? But despite the fact that I feel I'm heeding my instincts, there's always a hint of panic I feel when I wake up, checking to be sure the baby is still breathing.
Which is why I don't think anybody really has definitive answers for anybody else. It's a dance, as Hedra describes, and what works for one may not work for another. But it will pass, and they will get it eventually, so keep lots of Chocolate on hand, try to get some excercise, and HANG IN THERE!!!! It will get better.

[LC]

@pennifer - apparently 'Kaiser's lactation consultant' who said you can't co-sleep and night-wean never warned my 17 mo.

He was waking every 3-4 hours and would mostly only nurse back to sleep (start in crib, after waking we'd co-sleep). Now, he'll nurse the first time, back in the crib if we're still up, or with us if it's later - and then wake to just kvetch: Mr. "Mommy is my pacifier" will turn his nose up at my offering to nurse him at 2 am. But he still wakes. Go figure.

[CG]

Stacy, I don't have any advice for you, but I just wanted to say sorry you're having such a rough time. Look on the bright side--eventually ALL kids give up their naps, ha ha! Just kidding. We have done CIO at night with success but I will rock, rub his back, take a ride in the car, do just about anything to get my son to take a nap. He needs that time to recharge and the days I'm home with him, so do I. Is there any way you can get a break for a few hours a week so that the napping or not becomes someone else's problem for a little while? Sometimes for me that's a great relief, even with a pretty good sleeper.

[hedra]

there was a comment recently on one of my multiples groups that ties to this, too - a mom was talking about the sleep thing, and a friend of her who is I think polynesian (er, I'll have to check) said, "Wait, they don't sleep deeply until they're weaned, around 2-3 years, yes? We don't even bother wondering about sleep until then..." (or words to that effect) - they're expected to nap best in a sling, on mom's back or belly or hip. They're expected to co-sleep well into childhood, and girls co-sleep with their moms much longer. They're not expected to sleep ALL night, period, until fully weaned... so what's the deal? Why are Americans all over this sleep thing - they are babies, they don't sleep nonstop.

I think they're closer to the biological norm, there.

I do agree with Alexis that sleep deprivation is a big deal, and that it needs to be addressed. Mr G was moved out of our bed because *he* didn't sleep well there. He slept better in his own room (despite needing to sleep on someone for a while, but the non-sleeping resolved immediately when the health issues were handled). The rest slept better with us. Most of the time. Sometimes, someone needs to sleep somewhere else. The same thing all the time isn't mandatory.

Sleep is a priority for our family - we had a rule with the twins that I was not permitted to get out of bed until I had 8 hours of sleep. If that was 11 AM, or 1 PM, didn't matter. Eight hours. And then there were naps, too.

We still put a premium on sleep. It comes before almost everything else in the health world, for us, except diet. That said, we don't use CIO as a training method, though we did learn to listen for whether Mr G was cycling up or down (he did both, but it was obvious which it was).

[caramama]

professor mama - Weissbluth worked great for my sister's kids. Perfect, even! He was speaking to her and her child completely. But... nothing he said was true for my child AT ALL. Nothing. So it all depends. I figure they are all worth a try, but I don't get caught up thinking that THIS one has to be the ONE. You know?

[stacy]

@professor mama: Weissbluth did not work for us at all. Our kid just screamed for hours and hours and never slept. It was horrible. What did eventually work? A unique combination of the Sleep Lady Shuffle, Ferber, and tips I'd read on this website.

But that's me, and my kid. If the sleep adventure has taught me nothing else, it's that what works for one child may not work for another. As you can see in these comments, some people let their kid cry once for less than an hour and all was solved. If you'd done that on advisement from Weissbluth, then you'd think he was a genius. Those parents who have success with him, who just have those kinds of kids, think he's the best thing ever. And I don't blame them! But we weren't among them, so I don't generally tout that book. I'm sure, however, someone with an entirely opposite experience is waiting in the wings. It's really all trial and error.

If you're looking for answers, it's worth giving Weissbluth a shot - even if he doesn't end up being The One True Sleep Expert for you, you'll at least pick up a tip or two from him. I liked some of his advice about scheduling, and his bits about the importance of sleep were relevant, even if I found them patronizing. I wouldn't go back and change all the reading I did, even if none of the authors alone had The Answer. Every bit and piece was *something.*

[meggiemoo]

{{hugs}} to you stacy. We've been through almost 3 years of this, but it can still get the both of us down.

I do think we as parents believe we have FAR more say over how our kids turn out than we do. Look at any parent with more than 2 children, and they'll tell you that the easy kids made them think they were great parents, until the more challenging kid came along and knocked them on their asses.

[scantee]

Oh goodie, a sleep discussion, just the place to vent my sleep frustrations. My year-old son has never been a good sleeper. His main problem isn't frequent night wakings or a difficulty falling asleep when he first goes down, it's that he wakes up in the middle of the night and will be up a couple of hours wanting to play.

It is killing me and my husband. We just started CIO last night and it was pretty painful. He squawked in his crib from 3 to 4:30. Not out and out crying, just the pissed off wails and moans of a baby who wants to be up playing. Hopefully tonight is a little better. I really believe though that he is "ready" for CIO, in a way that he wasn't just a month or two ago. His cries don't have the same anguished feel and he has gotten great at putting himself to sleep when he first goes down. It is hard though, and like mom2boys, I feel guilty. Last night I felt guilty for not feeling heartsick at hearing his protests, I just wanted him to GO TO SLEEP!

I think there are so many reasons why sleep is the issue for our generation of parents; more hectic schedules for both working and at home parents means we less time to relax and nap, unrealistic expectations set up by our parents and grandparents who don't remember what it was like, and the competitive nature of parenting where having a good sleeper is considered proof of good parenting.

[hedra]

@pennifer, the twins were night weaned while cosleeping... so, er. yeah.

@professor mama, if you want to review what all the different methods say, and get a good cross comparison, try the Ann Douglas Mother of All Sleep Books book - she tends to draw in research, a variety of methods, and illustrates how they work with different kids, WITHOUT throwing a lot of 'if you don't do this, your child will call you a failure' stuff. She doesn't care which one you choose, she just wants to provide you with a way to choose effectively. So, try there, first. I'd also consider Ferber's latest as a likely option. The book specifies which method to try for which kind of issue, and they're not all the same issue.