Sleep Stuff

In the early months of infancy, "figuring out" sleep can become an obsession for many parents. For awhile, you run on adrenaline. But after a few months, lack of sleep takes its toll. With Will and Sophie, I started at an early age trying to nudge them in the direction of independent, regular sleep. By independent, I mean in their own beds by 3 months (I did co-sleep from time to time before that) and not depending on only mommy (nursing, rocking, etc.) to put them to bed. By regular, I mean following eat-play-sleep cycles throughout the day, regular (early) bedtimes and regular naps. I'm sure I sound like a cold drill sergeant, but I promise I am still a cuddly mom. We just have a bedtime routine that we stick to and the whole family benefits from full nights of sleep. Of course flexibility is a necessity, but always taking a blasé attitude with sleep generally leads to sickness and poor behavior.

Will slept through the night at 5 1/2 months; Sophie at 3. Having the luxury of my kids being flexible with who puts them to bed allows Craig and I to have evenings out while a babysitter does the bedtime routine. That's super important to me. And while I would LOVE to sleep past 7:00 on weekends, I also know that come school time, the kids are already prepared for a good schedule.

Sleep is a basic need. As important as food, in my opinion. And asking a child to skip a nap or stay up way past bedtime is like asking them to skip a meal. Sometimes there's just no getting around it, but we make every effort to work around the kids' sleep times when planning activities. Without doing so, we are setting them (and ourselves!) up for failure. Whatever it is we are trying to accomplish will likely be doomed by poor behavior. Some kids drop naps at an early age, some continue napping till almost 5. At this point, I cannot imagine Will making it an entire day with no rest period. And to be honest, I appreciate the quiet time in my day to get things done!

Okay, onto pictures and a closer look at current sleep patterns.

Subject #1: William Riedeman
Age: 2 1/2
Current bedtime: 7:30-8:30 (usually 8:00)
Bedtime routine: bath (about 4-5 days/wk), clean diaper, jammies, teeth brushed, drink of water, chapstick (LOL), 2-3 books, prayers, kisses, lights out. That takes approx. 15-45 mins.

Typical morning wake time: 6:30-7:15
Naps: 1 from approximately 1-3 pm, sometimes longer
Current sleep hang-ups: 1) Will takes much longer to fall asleep since shortly before age 2. He may lie in bed and talk/sing/recite books, etc. for up to 2 hours. So he generally doesn't actually fall asleep until 8:30-9:30. (But the important thing is, he's not depending on any specific crutches and his body is learning to wind itself down.) 2) You'll remember we recently had a problem with him stripping after we left the room. But we have since fixed that by putting a t-shirt over his jammies and for some reason, he just stopped doing it. 3) He used to get up and open his door no less than 10 times per evening while he was supposed to be going to sleep. He didn't play with toys and he wasn't acting scared. He just thought it was a game and he'd grin every time we went to put him back in bed. Finally we decided to put a child-proof cover over his door knob and that seemed to work. Now he just lays on the floor behind the door and peers underneath, sometimes talking and calling for us. Sounds bad, but this is a significant improvement and he's falling asleep much sooner this way. So when we check on him before going to bed, we frequently find him asleep on the floor and we have to transfer him back to the bed.




Still... it's not bad. Once asleep, he sleeps through the night and has ever since he was a baby. He's a sound sleeper and will sleep through any noise.

The only other hang ups are if are out in the late morning and he gets drowsy on the drive home, he may completely refuse to fall asleep at nap time. So again, we TRY to work around that dilemma when we're out.

Subject #2: Sophia Riedeman
Age: 8 months
Current bedtime: 7:30-8:00
Bedtime routine: bath (most nights) following dinner, nursing (about 5-10 mins), wipe gums and new teeth with a washcloth, 1 book, lights out, stand and "slow dance"/sway/sing for a minute or two in front of her bed so she knows what's coming, tuck into sleep sack and turn on mobile, walk out.
Typical morning wake time: 6:15-7:15
Naps: 2-3 usually from about 9-11, 1-3, and 5:30-6. Her naps vary in length from 1-2.5 hours and the evening one is only a catnap IF she needs it.
Current sleep hang-ups: 1) Sophie has learned to pull to a stand in bed, even with the sleep sack on! She doesn't usually do this when trying to fall asleep and it doesn't usually affect night time at all. But if she wakes a little early from a nap, she may pull herself up instead of falling back asleep for a little longer. This what that looks like:


2) This is not really a hang-up... yet, but as of Christmas week, Sophie has taken to sucking her thumb at bedtime and nap time. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Obviously, there's not much I can do now and she looks super cute doing it, but I wonder if it will be an issue in the future. We've been done with pacifiers for quite awhile now, so I guess this is a new comfort measure for her? You know how some kids play with their ear using their free hand while thumb-sucking? Sophie sucks her right thumb and holds the neckline of her jammies with the left hand. She even lays her head on my shoulder when I'm singing to her at bedtime now.


Plus, on more than one occasion, she has woken up from a nap, found her thumb and gone back to sleep.




3) This is also not really a "hang-up" but Sophie is a much lighter sleeper than her brother. She will definitely wake up if you walk in her room (i.e. to grab laundry after she falls asleep!) or make excessive noise. She can still get herself back to sleep so, like I said, it's not really a problem.

In general, Will took longer to get himself sleeping through the night, but has been much more consistent ever since. Sophie slept much longer stretches right from birth, but then back tracked a few times before being the consistently good sleeper that she is today. I think next summer will be my biggest struggle with naps when I have one child who wants to go places and do stuff and one who still needs a morning nap. Hopefully by mid-summer she'll be ready to drop that one and we'll have a little more freedom again.

There are certainly lots of ways to make sleep work for different families. But it IS important and it's a very important skill for a child to be self-sufficient with sleep.