“Sleep, Baby, Sleep.”
It could also be read as, “Sleep! Baby. Sleep!” or if it’s 4am and I’ve been up for 2 hours, it could be “SLEEP! SLEEP! SLEEP! Baby. SLEEEEEEEEEP!”
My paintings in the last year or two have taken on the form of visual mantras or visual affirmations. I paint what I want my life to look like. Then I hang up the painting above my computer and look at it every day. I am a highly visual learner. By seeing this visual prayer every day, it slowly starts to seep into my reality and after awhile I start to notice that I actually believe the message in the painting. Once I believe it, my life and reality then follow.
And so my current visual affirmation is for my baby – almost one and not such a baby anymore – to sleep through the night. Things were going well for quite awhile. But then the teeth arrived. My stress levels soared in the summer (when I’m stressed, Fiona doesn’t sleep). Bad habits were formed. And so on and so on. It got to an all time record low several weeks ago and I was finally motivated to take action. I reviewed The No Cry Sleep Solution and then made a sleep plan, which I am carrying out in various steps.
My first step in the Sleep Plan was to cut out the 10pm wake up (she goes to bed at 7pm and started waking up at 10pm a month and a half ago). No milk, only a brief hug and then leave. The next step was no milk until midnight, only brief hugs and soothing when she wakes up. A few other steps are to make sure she doesn’t fall asleep breastfeeding and keep the middle of the night feeds short (leading to a gradual night weaning).
I’m knocking on some wood right now, but I’m pretty amazed that she is only waking up 2 times now (1:30am and 5:00am) and then is up for the day at 7:30am. It is a drastic improvement from a month ago when there were a few nights where she was waking up every 30 minutes and occasionally up for a few hours in the middle of the night.
My next step is to night wean her from the 1:30am feed by gradually shortening the feeding time and then just using hugs and soothing. After that I’ll work on the 5am feed. And after that, maybe miracles will happen and she’ll sleep through the night. I am definitely read for some sleep. I feel like I’ve been sleep deprived for 7 years now with only brief respite in between babies. Since this is the last child we have decided to have, I found that I have been a lot more tolerant of the night wakings, knowing that “this too shall pass,” but frankly I am ready for this to pass.
I am also eased the fact that I know that it is healthier for older babies NOT to have milk or food in the middle of the night because our bodies were designed for our digestive system to have a rest at night so that all of our body’s energy can go into growth, repair and development. That being said, if the baby is in fact hungry, I would definitely feed her. But in my experience the midnight feeds have more to do with habit that actual hunger. But as anything in life, once a habit is formed, it takes a few weeks of consistency to break the habit and form a new one.
7 comments
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October 19, 2009 at 6:47 am
gisele
We are dealing with similar things at our house – hoping our (cough) almost 2 yr old will sleep through the night more regularly. One thing we’re doing is getting daddy to go and comfort her some of the time to try to break her of the habit of always needing mommy (who is tired out by now). You seem to be very watchfull for what Fiona needs which is lovely to see.
I loved your idea of making paintings of how you want the world to be and then putting them in a prominent place. I’ll have to try that.
October 20, 2009 at 2:17 am
Richard
My mantra for Fiona on her first birthday is this. “Fiona, your place in the world is huge. The days when your kind were not recognized for their gifts have now faded. Your days ahead are extremely bright. You will surely shed light to all corners of the earth. To this I have absolutely no doubt. I am here on the other side of the world waiting for you. Soon.”
October 21, 2009 at 8:47 am
ANGIE ROUT
hey! very nice. yes, I am not so disturbed by the night wakings as long as we both sleep in our Queen bed – just the two of us. Ans so what I am missing is not sleep – but time with my husband! Hopefully that can be soon. I sense we will be doing some little shifts in the near future to make that a reality! love the paintings!
October 22, 2009 at 8:41 am
Julia
It’s so funny how similar our experiences our – Theo JUST started sleeping through the night two weeks ago. Until then he would go through cycles of only waking up twice a night (the best he ever did) to waking up all through the night at random times. It didn’t matter if he slept in our bed, in his own bed, on the couch with one of us, in his bed with one of us on the floor next to him (sigh) – he still would go through these cycles. And we were SO tired!
Finally about a week after his first birthday he was fussing and refusing to sleep despite being REALLY tired, and I just said to myself “Enough! You’re ONE. Time to SLEEP!” and walked out of his room. Ten minutes later after some half-hearted crying he was asleep, and when he woke up at 11 I let him fuss again (I wouldn’t have let him cry, but he just sort of grumbled a bit in bed) and he fell back to sleep. Ever since then he’s been sleeping from 7:30/8 until 7:30 in the morning.
I think we were all (including Theo) ready for it to happen. Up until that moment I had always thought that he needed food, or he needed me, or he was scared, or whatever. But after his first birthday I think I realized that perhaps I was contributing to waking him up by feeding him, going in when he fussed, etc. So anyway, I think it was the right moment for him to learn to sleep, and for me to let him sleep!
Ah, sleep. The topic that parents of babies can talk about forever! Anyway, I guess the point is, I totally totally empathize and wish you luck getting your last little one to sleep!
xoxo
Julia
October 31, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Honey
I hope Fiona continues to do better and better! Svara still doesn’t sleep through the night. She doesn’t nurse during the night anymore, but she still wakes up and needs me to get her pacifiers for her. Once we’re back at home in Malaysia and all four of those molars have come through the pacifiers will say bye bye and hopefully it’ll make for more peaceful nights for me
November 24, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Annie @ PhD in Parenting
This is a beautiful painting and I love the idea of the visual affirmations and visual mantras. Great work!
November 25, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Carrie
Your description of Fiona’s nightly wake-ups sound so eerily familiar…oh right, cause they were happening to ME just a few weeks ago. I blame the eruption of 3 teeth at once plus the plumeting nightime temps as the culprits in my case. My daughter is now dressed in layers at night and gets a good dose of Motrin to ease those tender gums at night.
So far so good and she’s started sleeping from about 8pm to 7am.
I love the art! I would hang something like that in my daughter’s room over her crib