The issue of your child's sleep habits are a muddlesome maze of conflicting advice from experts and doctors, psychologists, family, and friends. There is the let-them-cry camp, the co-sleeping crowd, the doctor who insists that at such-and-such an age, a child no longer needs to wake up to eat, and the been-there parents who say that it's all a bunch of hooey.
It's certainly not easy to navigate through all of this, but sometimes it's even harder to stay the course you've chosen. When it's 11 at night and your baby is crying like her heart is breaking, and you're pointedly ignoring her, it's not easy to be sure you're doing the right thing.
Confessions of a Co-Sleeper
I never intended to be a co-sleeper. When Sasha was still a newborn, I would nurse her to sleep, and put her down in her makeshift bassinet (her stroller, actually). She would wake up typically by around 4am, and I would bring her into our bed and nurse her so we could both get back to sleep quickly. It was lovely, and it worked. By the time she was three months old, she was falling asleep at around 10pm. I would put her in her crib, and she would sleep as late as 4am... and then came the day we realized it was 6:30 and she wasn't up yet. It was positively giddy. I was sure we had beaten the sleepless parent roulette game.
Then we put her in daycare.
Daycare ruined a lot of things for poor Sasha. But one of the most long-lasting effects has been what it did to her sleep cycle. No longer could I put her down in her crib at night; she would wake up and cry within a half hour. We thought perhaps she needed some extra care and attention from us at night, because we were separated during the day, so I began to go to bed with her at around 10 at night.
There is no doubt in my mind that human beings are made to sleep with their parents during infancy. It was (and is!) wonderful to have her snuggled up against me, warm and soft. I could hear her breathing and feel her stir. I knew she was all right, I knew she was warm enough, I knew if she woke up hungry.
"Ferberizing"
But we knew it couldn't go on forever. As happy as we were to have her with us, the problems were myriad: She needed to be in bed and asleep by 8 or so, and I didn't want to go to bed so early every night. She needed to nurse to be happy falling asleep, and although it hasn't happened yet, sooner or later I'm not going to be there for her at bedtime. She became an active sleeper, kicking and tossing and turning all night (and I have the bruises to prove it).
Introduce Dr. Richard Ferber. His method of dealing with sleep issues involves changing the baby's sleep cues so that she learns to fall asleep without nursing, for example, or in her crib instead of in a parent's arms. You go through the new routine, put her where she needs to fall asleep, and then check on her after ever-longing periods of time to make sure she's not crying for good cause.
The first night we tried it, she cried for close to 40 minutes before falling asleep. We were steely-hearted, since we could tell from her voice that she was simply angry. The next night, it was only 20 minutes. The next, about 8. We had a few magic weeks of being able to put Sasha into her crib at bedtime and have her sleep for a few hours. We weren't aiming for sleeping through the night, however, and when she woke and cried at around 11pm, I would take her in with us to feed her and send her back to sleep.
But then we all came down with horrible colds, and I couldn't leave Sasha to cry alone when she felt so sick. She had some bad teething spells, and simply wouldn't fall asleep. We just got her on the schedule again, but Thanksgiving came and disrupted everything once more. Just when we got everything back in order a third time, we went away for Christmas.
Current State of the Binky
Now, we have something new in our Ferber arsenal. Something that will hopefully make the process that much easier. Sasha is now in her own room!
We have had limited success. Now, we can put her down in her own crib at night, and she falls asleep with no complaint. But she wakes up every couple of hours until midnight, and she wakes up about every half hour thereafter, until we take her into our room for the night. It's not perfect, but progress is progress.
My kitchen is: mostly clean! Baby steps, people, baby steps.
I get a lot of hits to this post from search engines, so I thought I'd do a little update.
The baby is almost a year and a half old now. For the past few months, every night at bedtime (around 8 PM), we take her upstairs, brush her teeth, change her into pajamas, and put her music on. Then I sit with her in a rocking chair and let her nurse for a little while. After just a few minutes, she'll sit up and point to her crib. Then I put her down, and she smiles at me, rolls onto her tummy, and that's that for the night.
If daddy is putting her to bed, she's pointing to the crib during the diaper change and jammies process!
She'll wake up usually by 5:30 AM, and then we'll snuggle in our bed with her and she'll nurse and go back to sleep for a few hours. I could probably put her back in her own room, but nobody minds, so there's no point in changing it. :)
She's come a long way! There's hope, people!
Posted by: Andrea on November 13, 2003 02:02 PMI am a daycare provider for infants and toddlers, have been one for 15 years, co-sleeping is something fairly new over the past few years in my daycare/area. Co-sleeping is great if your child isn't in daycare, what happens is a co-sleeping child is literally unable to sleep in his or her own daycare crib since they don't do this at home (One mom even naps with her baby on the days I don't have him/her!!). I have 4-6 daycare children at one time and cannot be in the room to lull the co-sleeping child to sleep. It isn't possible when there are other children out in another room unsupervised if this occurs. We have to put your baby down at nap time, cold turkey and they must cry themselves to sleep and in my experience the child wakes after 5-20 minutes and are literally floored that mommy and or daddy isn't there, and the wake up process is just frightening (some wake in hysterics!!) for them, they don't wake up alone at home, and this wakes the other napping children. I do have an new interview question for all of my new parents that come to look for care and that is, "Do you co-sleep?" If the answer is "yes", my next question, "Is your child able to sleep on his or her own w/o an adult co-sleeping with them?" If the answer to that question is "No" then I will have to pass on this particular family as it has caused me months of grief(for each baby), woken countless other children who need the sleep and can sleep alone. It isn't fair for us providers. We love your children but we won't sleep with them. Growing children need to nap and providers need a break.
Posted by: Daycare Provider on December 3, 2003 12:03 AMI just have to respond to the above comment.
Kids are smarter than adults tend to think they are, and more capable of adapting to new situations. When Sasha was co-sleeping, she never had an issue being put to sleep at daycare, any more than any other baby did. The swing, the bouncy seat, maybe a little bit of cuddling, and that was it.
I think the above daycare provider probably had bad experiences with one or two co-sleeping kids and was soured on the idea. The problems that she attributes to co-sleeping alone, I would chalk up to something else entirely (like the need to be in a quiet room). These certainly aren't universal problems for all co-sleeping children. If you're a parent considering sleep options, please don't base your decision on one bitter and anonymous daycare provider.
Posted by: Andrea Phillips on February 22, 2004 10:11 PM