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“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.
Still tipsy and toddling, but definitely a walker.
My first reaction to learning that Isabela was going to have a sleepover camping trip with her class was, “What? NO WAY!”
Chris’ reaction was, “Hey, that’s great!”
Which made me realize that the problem was that, whether or not Isabela was ready, I was not ready.
At first Isabela did not want to go, but as the time came closer, and as they talked about it more and more in their class, she started to get excited. Just a few days before the trip, without any prompting from us, she decided to sleepover.
After dropping her off at the camp and helping her set up her things on the bunk bed in the cabin, we said goodbye and without a flinch or second glance she bounced off to play. My, this is a different child than the one who used to sob and sob every morning at school drop off, during recess and when I was not the first parent in line to pick her up.
They hiked, created nature art, visited a salmon hatchery, the water reservoir and dam, roasted marshmallows, sang camp songs and SLEPT OVER in a room with 25 giggling girls. Granted, I’m not sure how much sleep they actually got.
Isabela is growing up.
After I did the painting, Mama Hugs, for Isabela, Diego said that he wanted one too. So here is Diego and I giving each other a “nose kiss.”
And here is the painting in Diego’s room. I love that what he looks at when we wakes up and before he goes to sleep is his mother giving him a huge hug and connecting together with a silly nose kiss.
You may notice the painting is, in fact, crooked. It is now at the perfect height for Fiona to bang it. Fortunately the “glass” is actually a really thick plastic. And you may also notice the very red walls and the very red blanket.
Ah yes. Red. There seems to be something about Diego and the color red. This summer I decided to paint the kids rooms and wanted their input on colors. Immediately Diego choose this color of red and Isabela chose a dark pink. I was all, “No way! You have to choose a lighter color.” But we couldn’t agree on anything and finally came to an impass. Weeks went by.
Finally I started thinking about something in one of the attachment videos, from the series Helping Children Grow Up, by Gordon Neufeld. He was talking about how children need “room to be themselves.” Of course, he was talking about it in the metaphorical sense, but I realized that this applied in the literal sense as well. I needed to give my the kids their rooms as their own.
I mean, how much time do I really spend in my kids rooms? Mostly we play in the living room and kitchen. And why can’t I just get over my issue of not liking those colors? Why can’t I just let them like those colors and immerse themselves in them?
So I let them pick their colors again and they immediately went back and chose the exact same colors (out of hundreds and hundreds of color swatches) that they had originally chosen.
And you know something, now it has grown on me. I really like those colors a lot.
Here is Isabela’s very pink room.
In celebration of babies being carried.
In celebration of wonderful, deliciously comfortable baby carriers.
In celebration of the Ergo and how it has changed my life.
In celebration of babies feeling secure and attached to their parents.
In celebration of cooking dinner and washing dishes while carrying Baby.
In celebration of not getting a sore back or sore shoulders from carrying Baby.
In celebration of International Babywearing Week (Sept. 21-28, 2009).
In celebration of being “Close Enough to Kiss.”
“I hate school! I’m never coming back here!” screamed Isabela to her teacher.
This came after a huge blowout on her second day of full day school – a mixture of tears, temper tantrums and Isabela yelling at her teacher. Not terribly surprising since it took her 8 months to get used to kindergarten last year. I brought her home after lunch and spent an hour and a half with her crying. At which point I was crying too.
Chris came home early from work and did one of the most spectacular parenting jobs I have ever seen in my life. He immediately went into her room and played with her. Created a really strong attachment. Was silly and playful. Then told her about his school experience. And then talked, consulted, encouraged and honored her tears, her fears and her experience at school.
It took 4 hours.
By the next morning Isabela was ready for full day school. (And Chris was ready for a day off.)
When we got to the school, this is what she said: “I’m really scared, but Papa said that in order to get used to something new, I have to try it. So I’m going to try going to school all day today.”
She went the whole day without any problems.
The next day, with a little attitude in her voice she said, “Diego, if you want to get used to something new, you just have to do it.”
This girl is now 6 and I am in amazement – in fact flabbergasted and in awe of the things she can do now.
Like the other day I overheard her say, “Diego, I know I fight with you over wanting your cars, but actually, I was just fighting. I don’t really want them. Here you can have them back.”
WHAT?
Is that the same Isabela?
Or this one: “Isabela it’s time to get ready for bed.”
“O.K.” she says. And 1 minute later she’s got on her pajamas and teeth brushed.
WHAT?
I think I’m liking this.
Isabela is my child that teaches me to be a parent. First of all, she’s the first. So everything I do with her is trial and error. And unfortunately, a lot of error. But she’s also my most sensitive and challenging child. And because of this, she is really the child that MAKES me become a better parent.
When kids are easy, we don’t have a lot of motivation to change, as a parent, or to learn new things. But when we’re pulling our hair out, screaming into a pillow and cursing under our breath, well these are the things that trigger us to search for new solutions.
The greatest parenting investment I have ever made was to purchase a set of parenting videos by Gordon Neufeld about attachment parenting called “The Power to Parent”. Not cheap. And NOT easy to do. But so incredibly helpful, practical and inspiring. For me the proof of these miracle parenting videos is how dramatically my relationship with my children has changed. Read more about how I have been re-learning to parent here.
And now I leave you with some birthday party photos.
Decorations courtesy of Isabela and Diego.
To all the parents out there. I have noticed that every single time we go outside to play in our yard or we have children come over to our house to play, they ALWAYS end up in the sandbox for a significant amount of time. Sandboxes are CHEAP (especially if you buy them used – we buy all our used stuff from craigslist.org) and sand is CHEAP ($5 at Home Depot for a huge bag, or free if you get it from a beach).
You will never lose with this investment. It will provide HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS of entertainment. So my advice to you is this: Go out and buy a sandbox.
I’m not really sure what the deal is with mermaids and princesses and that crap, but I decided I can get over my issues – at least for the birthday cake – and let Isabela choose what kind of cake she wanted. I was hoping for something more like this cake from here:
But who am I kidding, really? At this stage in my life, I need the simple solution. And so off we went to the dollar store, bought a couple of mermaids, and then a bunch of bags of candy from the Quickie Mart down the street. “Whoa! That’s a lot of candy!” says Harry, the store clerk.
Then the kids iced and decorated the cake themselves. And which kid wouldn’t want a cake covered with candy? The irony, of course, is that I don’t ever eat sugar and hardly ever let my kids eat sugar, but what the heck. Birthdays only come around once a year.
We were searching through Google Images to get some ideas for mermaid cakes and I taught Isabela how to click on the image that she wants, enlarge the photo, then go back to the main page to continue searching through the images, then click to the next page of images. This was out of a matter of necessity, since 3 kids requires so much multitasking and Fiona is at the “pounding the computer” stage and so I didn’t have a lot of time to sit down and look at photos with Isabela.
To my complete amazement, I only had to teach her once and she remembered exactly how to do all of those steps.
I got my first email address when I was in university. Not because I was technologically repressed, but because NO ONE ELSE HAD EMAIL ADDRESSES. There was no Google. No Facebook. No Wikipedia. And look, I’m not really that old. That was only 13 years ago. But it was all so new and I used to curse the computer endlessly because it didn’t do what I wanted it to do and I didn’t know how to fix the things I had by some magical mistake messed up.
And now, here is my 6 year old daughter, going, “I can do it. I can do it.” And she really can.
And then there’s my three year old picking up my Ipod Touch, turning it on, scrolling through, finding the game he wants, opening it, playing it, closing it, checking the weather, closing it, and turning off the Ipod and putting it away. Not that he does it that often, because just like the sugar thing, I also have a TV/computer/electronic anti-thing for kids. So they don’t use it that often and that’s why it just amazes me that when they do it, they remember all of the steps all on their own.
He is so comfortable with the touch screen that often forgets that my computer is not a touch screen and tries to open and move things around on the screen instead of with the mouse. I suspect that his first computer will probably be a touch screen computer. I’m sure those will come out sometime soon.
Whoa. I started out with Mermaid birthday cakes and ended up with predictions about touch screen computers. I bet you weren’t expecting that, were you?
Despite having just learned to crawl last week, as soon as Fiona hears the fridge door open, she races (as fast as a new crawler can race) over to the fridge. And all that motivation to reach the higher things actually inspired her to pull herself and stand now too.
Top that off with a few new teeth (for those without kids means A LOT of night waking and daytime crankiness). And boy, has this been a full week.
But thankfully my parents have been around and have taken the big kids out on plenty of adventures. The lake, the pool, a boat ride, the zoo, the park, the ice cream store. Life is good when grandparents are around.
Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, our little newborn baby is now a crawler and no longer a newborn.
It has been a busy week. Fiona learned how to sit, crawl and pull herself up all in one week. It is by the virtue of sheer determination that these incredible babies learn how to move. From the instant Fiona wakes up, she sits right up and starts crawling. She spends the whole day, the ENTIRE day practicing. Practicing, practicing, practicing.
To develop all of those muscles she has spent a lot of time doing the “downward facing dog” yoga position. I can last for about 1 minute doing that. She does it ALL DAY LONG.
Needless to say, all this new movement has brought with it a fresh new wave of bumps and bruises. But that is the beauty of determination. There is nothing, neither pain nor tears that will stop Fiona from practicing and moving until she has perfected and mastered these new skills.
It is an incredible reminder for me about the determination that is needed when I am learning something new.
“I feel like I’m not me anymore. I feel like a new person.” says Isabela, shortly after I gave her a drastically different new, short hair cut (at her persistent request).
It’s amazing how just something as simple as a hair cut can completely change a person. I see her differently. She has completely control over her hair. She’s always hated it when I brushed her hair and with long hair it turned into a wild crazy mess everyday. Which I would attempt to brush and she would attempt to run and hide or scream and complain.
Juliet cut her hair short a few weeks ago and ever since then Isabela has been asking me, “I want my hair like Tia’s.” (Tia is Spanish for aunt). And so last week I cut it. It was a true test of skill on my part, but amazing how this week she was able to completely get herself ready on her own for school, including BRUSHING HER OWN HAIR.
And when she said, “I feel like a different person,” well, I feel like a different person too. This last month has been one of the most life transforming months for me. I’m in awe. Everyday is a new discovery. A new revelation.
I’ve been unraveling all of my emotional repression. Sorting through the phases of my life. Unburdening myself from all of the things that I am attached to and/or that do not bring me joy. Giving away all of my furniture. Giving away all of my art. Throwing away all of the photos that showed the fake me. I only want the real me around. I’m done with bullshit. I’m strongly suspect that the intensity of having three children has brought me to the place where I need SIMPLICITY. Honesty. NO B.S.. Just the real me. I just turned 33 years old a few weeks ago and I realized that a whole lot of my life has been fake. Doing things for other people. Worried what others think of me. Living with an imaginary audience in my head.
And it’s time for that “show” for other other people to get thrown in the garbage, where it belongs.
I re-read all of my old journals and felt like I was researching my life. Recognizing common themes, pulling out the same recurrent tests and the themes of my life. I learned that skill well, when I was working on my thesis for my master’s degree. I’ve decided to make a “Life Time Line” of me. The real me. The crappy, messy, painful, fearful, vulnerable me. I may or may not share some of that on my blog. We’ll see.
A couple weeks ago I read a post about baby wearing. I have to say, at first I kind of didn’t get it.
But I thought about it in the days following, because, honestly, despite me being on my third child now and being used to wearing my babies, I hadn’t really ever thought about it in terms of the psychological aspect for the baby.
When the baby is facing out, like in a stroller or an outward facing carrier, the stimulus can be overwhelming. As stated by Dr. Evelin Kirkilionis on the Ergo baby site, “In this position the baby cannot make eye contact with his or her parent to evaluate facial expressions, social cues, and so forth to make assessment of the situation.” Which can mean stress and insecurity for the baby. Even in my sling, I realized that it is difficult for my little one to see me, even when she’s facing inwards.
So I thought about it a lot. And then I started watching an amazing video course on attachment parenting, called the Power to Parent by Gordon Neufeld (which I already mentioned before, but I just have to keep mentioning it because it is so amazing. SO. AMAZING.)
Well. One of the things he mentioned was that in all indigenous and tribal cultures, nobody had to teach them how to parent. And nobody ever had to teach them attachment parenting. They just do it instinctively. He said if you need a real live model of attachment parenting, just look to them.
So I thought a lot about that.
And I realized that one thing they all have in common is that they all wear their babies on their back. And as I thought about that, I realized that I didn’t have a proper baby carrier for that. And I didn’t have a baby carrier that was comfortable enough for me to carry Fiona for extended periods of time. Especially when I was in the kitchen, she would just get in the way if she was in the sling.
And then I thought again about the post about baby wearing. I mentioned it to my sister, who also has a baby, and we talked and thought and talked and thought.
The first level of attachment, the way a baby attaches in the first year of life, is though the physical senses. And we wanted to be able to give that physical sense of security and reassurance to our babies. But not at the expense of killing ourselves, being sore, and not being able to do anything in the kitchen.
So yesterday Juliet went out and bought the Ergo baby carrier. I had never seen it before, so I tried it out this morning. It is amazing.
I went out and bought one a few hours later. The amazing difference is that Fiona can actually look up at me and we can communicate and talk while she’s sitting in the front. Not to mention how comfortable it is!
My brother-in-law, Shane, who grew up in what the rest of the world would call “The North Pole” (but we call Nunavut and the Northwest Territories), took one look at us wearing the Ergo with the babies on the back and said, that’s just exactly what the Inuit babies look like when they’re mother’s carry them in hood of their jackets on their back.
Bingo. That’s exactly what we were looking for: a little taste of the attachment parenting that comes so instinctively and naturally to indigenous and tribal cultures.
(photos from the Ergo baby website)
Mama Hugs.
That’s really what childhood is all about, isn’t it?
Lots and lots and lots of Mama hugs.
At least, that’s what every child needs.
This painting has a long story that goes with it.
For the last several weeks, Isabela’s teacher has been letting the kids out early and giving them recess out on the playground at the end of the day. Most kids, I suspect, love this. But for Isabela, if I am not there outside her door when she is let out (which is impossible for me to know when they will be let out, now they they have recess every once in a while), well, it’s just too much for her little heart and she cries and cries and cries until I get there.
So I decided to to make her a “Love Bag” for those times when she is feeling sad, lonely and worried that I won’t be there to pick her up. The Love Bag is a little piece of me that she can physically and emotionally “hold on to” when I am not there. Something that reminds her how much I love her, makes her feel special and brings joy to her heart. Something that makes her feel loved.
I suspect that the Love Bag will be a continuously evolving entity and will grow as she grows. I have plans to make a very special bag with beautiful material that she chose and to laminate some photos of the two of us and of our family to add to it.
For now, inside the Love Bag there are a few dried fruit snacks, a little bag of raisins, a heart note that tells her I love her and most recently, this watercolor painting of the two of us hugging.
But the real story, the story that inspired me to create this Love Bag, has been the completely life transforming and paradigm shifting changes within me, all inspired from an 8 hour video course by Gordon Neufeld, entitled, The Power to Parent: The Vital Connection. As I’ve mentioned before, he is one of my all time favorite authors, and his book, Hold Onto Your Kids, is one of my all time favorite books. But this video course just took the whole attachement parenting to a new level. A deep, deep, life changing level. The kind of level that has triggered reflections and new understandings about my own childhood, about my own self, about all of my relationships, about my children, about the way I parent, about everything.
And it is certainly no coincidence that the video arrived to me, in the mail, on the first day of the Baha’i Fast (whose purpose is mind, body and soul transformation). And it is certainly no coincidence that the medicine from my Chinese doctor started kicking in on the first day of the Baha’i Fast and it’s been detoxing and cleansing my body ever since (if anyone has ever “detoxed” you know just how rotten you feel during that time). And it is certainly no coincidence that we started building an extra room in the house during the Fast, meaning that Chris would come home from work, then go to work downstairs building the room, which meant that I was by myself with all the kids all day and all night. All of these stresses where enormous triggers for transformation.
It’s been overwhelming, exhausting, made me sick, made me sob for an entire day, made me angry, pissed off, yell and scream, made me depressed. In short, it’s made me FEEL. And it’s helped to peel away the layers on my heart which I have built over years and years and years to hide my vulnerability and protect myself from the pain of separation and heart ache from not feeling a sense of unconditional love in my life.
As I learned in the attachment parenting videos, in order to strongly attach and connect with your children, they have be vulnerable, depend on you and open up their heart to you. But the won’t do that it if is not safe or if there is a threat of separation, which is a pain too much to bear. Well, how can I possibly open up their heart, if my heart is not open? As my sister said, “Attachment parenting feels so foreign that I might as well be parenting on Mars.”
I still have 2 more sets of attachment parenting video courses to watch: Helping Children Grow Up and Common Challenges. And much, much, much more life transformation awaiting me.
There are a handful of authors in the world who truly astound me for their ability to completely transform my life through a book. Elizabeth Pantley, world renowned parenting expert, is one of those authors. And The No Cry Nap Solution is one of those books.
If you are a parent of small children, like myself, you will know that:
a good nap = a good day
a bad nap = a bad day
But getting those good naps can be an elusive, how-do-I-do-it?, FRUSTRATING experience.
A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH
Well, along came Elizabeth Pantley. And she has a gift. Her gift is the ability to conduct sound, thorough research and present it in a format that is easy to read, inspiring and truly transforming.
Most parents do not have the time, desire or motivation to pour through all the literature and scientific studies that have been conducted on naps, deduce theories from it, and then set it to trial to revise and refine with a group of 209 Test Parents. Thankfully, we don’t have to. Elizabeth Pantley did it for us.
When I was conducting my own qualitative research for my master’s thesis, I wanted to do research with a group of 20 people and was advised that it was an unmanageable number – 5 or 6 would be better (I settled at 14). So the fact that Elizabeth Pantley conducted a qualitative research study with 209 people is in and of itself amazing.
NAPS ARE CRUCIAL
Elizabeth Pantley very clearly illustrates not only the benefits, but the crucial nature of naps. Based on age, a child may require 0-4 naps. This sleep has various stages, each with its own benefit, such as:
- releasing stress and stabilizing moods
- releasing the growth hormone
- repairing and healing the body and strengthening the immune system
- regulating the appetite
- ensuring proper brain connections and development, including memory and new learning
- improving motor, visual and perceptual skills
THE VOLCANO EFFECT
On top of this, we are all (adults included) subject to something called homeostatic sleep pressure or what she terms “The Volcano Effect.” Based on our age, we can only be awake for a given amount of time before we literally explode – and we all know what that means – temper tantrums, melt downs, screaming and crying.
By keeping an eye on the clock as well as an eye on our child’s sleepy signs, we can greatly reduce The Volcano Effect. One of the great things I learned from this book was that if I put my children down for a nap when they are sleepy, and not overtired, then they fall asleep quickly and easily.
In fact, I was surprised to learn that presleep, where the child is relaxed and tired, is actually the first stage in sleep, whose purpose is to prepare the body for sleep. But if ignored it will lead to a second wind and eventually an increase in feeling overtired.
A CHILD NEEDS TO FALL ASLEEP ON THEIR OWN
The thing I love about Elizabeth Pantley is her gentle, caring approach to parenting and that everything stems from a place of deep consideration for the child and the parent. She offers a plethora of suggestions on how to get your child to nap, but she always leaves a back door open to keep things the way they are if what we’re doing already is working for us, we’re feeling stressed or the child is sick, teething, learning a new skill or any other number of things that can disturb sleep.
But, if you do want your children to take good naps, more than just the 40 minute “One-Cycle Sleep Syndrome” (a baby’s sleep cycle lasts 40-60 minutes), then this book is for you.
By far, the most important thing that I have learned from reading the No Cry Nap Solution (and its parent book, The No Cry Sleep Solution which focuses more on night time sleep), is the importance of teaching a child to fall asleep on their own.
There is a brief awakening at the end of each sleep cycle. In order for a child to make it from one sleep cycle to the next, unaided by the parent, the child has to fall asleep on their own. If the child fell asleep breastfeeding (or being rocked, bounced, held or bottlefed) then they will awaken, become disturbed that things are not as they were when they fell asleep, and want to breastfeed again. If, however, they fell asleep on their own, then they will briefly awaken, see that everything is still the same and go right back to sleep.
She uses the analogy of us falling asleep in our warm, cozy bed and then waking up on the hard, cold kitchen floor. Of course we wouldn’t go back to sleep! We’d be alarmed and distressed.
NOW, HOW DO I GET MY CHILD TO NAP?
Well, this is why you need to buy the book. She literally has a solution for probably every single nap challenge, such as:
- Catnaps: Making short naps longer
- The nap resister: When your child needs a nap but won’t take one
- Shifting schedules: Changing from two naps to one nap
- Shifting schedules: Time to give up naps?
- Changing from in-arms sleep to in-bed sleep
- Naptime nursling: Falling asleep without the breast, bottle or pacifier
- Swinging, bouncing, vibrating or gliding: Making the transition from motion sleep to stationary sleep
- Helping your newborn tummy sleeper go “Back to sleep”
- How to use swaddling for naptime
- Changing car naps to bed naps
- Colic care: Helping your baby get comfort and relief from naps
- Could it be a sleep disorder? When to call a doctor
Just when you think you have the naps all figured out, they get a little older and everything changes. The No Cry Nap Solution is a book that I will definitely keep going back to, for each new naptime stage.
YOUR CHILD WON’T CRY, BUT YOU MIGHT
All of the approaches in this book are gentle and respectful of the child. They are not quick fix solutions, but require a tremendous amount of consistency and self-discipline on the part of the parent. And lets face it, it’s hard. Damn hard.
I have cried many tears during this process of endless hours of trying to get them to back to sleep.
Let me share with you one trick that has saved me: I have an iPod touch and during the endless hours in a dark, quiet room, something that could otherwise make me go mad AND get mad, I play games, surf the internet and listen to music and podcasts. I also pray and meditate.
And sure enough, after a few weeks of consistency on my part, those hours dwindle to minutes and I find myself almost wishing I had more time in that dark, quiet room.
It took about 3-4 weeks of consistency before my newborn would nap more than 40 minutes. And then we went on vacation. A blessing and a challenge. When we came home it took another 3 weeks to get back to the place where we were before the vacation, and now we just had Daylight Savings last weekend and she has a cold.
But at least now I know what to do.
And I know how to do it.
And for this I have to thank Elizabeth Pantley and The No Cry Nap Solution.
It’s so much easier in the short term to do the quick fix. Just let them breastfeed to sleep, or whatever you do.
Changing a habit is slow. It takes time and patience. But it’s so well worth it in the end, particularly when you think about the stress and anxiety that too much crying can cause on the child AND the parent.
WHAT DO NAPS LOOK LIKE IN MY HOUSE?
I have 3 nappers in my house.
THE BABY
A 4 month old, who would much prefer to have three naps a day, has had to adjust to 2 naps a day due to her big sister’s kindergarten drop offs and pick ups. She LOVES to breastfeed to sleep. I have to work pretty hard at remembering to take her off the breast just before she falls asleep, because if I don’t, more often than not I get a baby who’s stuck in the frustrating, 40 minute, One Cycle Sleep Syndrome. A lot of times I forget, but fortunately Elizabeth Pantley advises that we try to help them fall asleep on their own at least 50% of the time.
The other thing that has helped me a lot with her is the suggestion to maintain a consistent sleep routine, which sends signals to the child’s brain (or sleep cues) that it is time to sleep. Ours goes something like this: change diaper, give family a kiss goodbye, get wrapped up her swaddle blanket, turn on white noise, close curtains and lay down to nurse. One weekend I forgot to turn on the white noise and couldn’t figure out why I was having so many problems with her naps. Suddenly I remembered: white noise! I turned it on and she instantly relaxed and soon after that fell asleep.
The No Cry Sleep Solution also recommends to try changing around the way we calm them down and get them sleepy so that they are not completely dependent on one method (ie. breastfeeding, bouncing, rocking, etc). This has helped me tremendously because I when I get to the end of my rope, I know I can count on my husband to give her a little, gentle head jiggle (which we learned from The Happiest Baby on the Block) so I can leave to regain my sanity. With my two older children, if they didn’t fall asleep nursing when they were babies, then I didn’t know what else to do. I felt powerless. Now I feel like I have options.
THE 3 and 5 YEAR OLDs
They both still nap, on and off, usually when they had a bad night sleep or they’re starting to get sick. The rest of the time they do what Elizabeth Pantley calls the “Hush Hour” (or what we call “Quiet Time”) in their own room. It takes a month or two for them to adjust to this, but it is incredible how beneficial this restful time during the day is for them. They rest, read books, draw pictures, play with their toys and above all else, learn to enjoy playing by themselves and finding things to do on their own.
It is also a critical break for the parents, where we can nap, rest, read, rejuvenate ourselves and spend a little time filling ourselves up so that we are ready to parent again for the rest of the day. I napped every single day when I was pregnant and now I use the Hush Hour as a time for rest, reflection, creativity and exercise. Things which I otherwise find difficult to do with three children around.
As you can see, this book has the potential to change your life!
MORE FROM ELIZABETH PANTLEY
Ever since I was first lent a copy of Elizabeth Pantley’s book, the No Cry Sleep Solution, 3 years ago, I have become a HUGE fan of her books.
In fact, normally I am a voracious reader, but my mind went into a pregnancy fog this last year and the only two books I have been able to read since my baby was born, 4 months ago, were Elizabeth Pantley’s No Cry Sleep Solution (which I took off my bookshelf to re-read the day I came home from the hospital with my baby) and The No Cry Nap Solution. I think that says it all.
Here is a list of her other books, which I highly recommend:
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We are now on the fourth day out of the nineteen day Baha’i Fast.
No food or water from sunrise to sunset. For nineteen days.
As I described to my kids, Everytime your tummy grumbles, it reminds you to think of God.
But it’s been 7 years since I’ve participated in the Fast, since I am now in my 7th of year of being either pregnant or breast-feeding (7 years!) Having children has been the single most challenging thing I have ever done. But it has also been the greatest time of spiritual transformation for me. Which is the whole purpose of the Fast. So in a way, I have been spiritually “fasting” (fasting from my own desires) for 7 years.
For a little inspiration, check out: nineteen days
Dr. Harvey Karp in The Happiest Baby on the Block, describes the first 3 months after a baby is born as “the fourth trimester.” It is a fascinating idea that our babies are “evited” 3 months early, when they really need all the benefits of the womb still. But if they stayed inside of us any longer, their heads would grow too large and they could get stuck and die.
I like the analogy of the fourth trimester because it reminded me that I needed to be her “womb bubble” to protect and care for her with great gentleness and love. And all of her reactions are based on instincts. The amazing thing is that all of the calming reflexes from the womb are still intact and you can tap into them to calm your baby.
Now that Fiona is four months old, I can see new light bulbs switching on in her head all of the time. While she has definitely moved out of the fourth trimester, she still settles down quickly with the Happiest Baby on the Block techniques.
We tried her in the Jolly Jumper today and I’ve never seen her get so excited. She was giggling, smiling and bouncing. Just knew exactly what to do.
I’m having an afternoon of meltdowns. Mine and everyone elses.
It was 2pm and I had just had a nice 1/2 hour rest on the couch. I was standing up to get some food, when, Whhhaaaaaaaaa, comes blaring over the baby monitor.
3:30pm. An hour and a half to get her back to sleep. She’s sobbing, and I’m sobbing and the kids are screaming. I suddenly realize that all I had eaten that day was a bowl of oatmeal and small sandwich. Enough for some people, maybe, but not nearly enough food for a breastfeeding, hypoglycemic mother.
I’m at the table sobbing and sobbing into my bowl of cheerios, with Diego and Isabela lurking around asking me, What’s wrong? Why are you crying?
And suddenly, my savior.
Juliet walks upstairs to borrow a can of beans, gives me a hug and takes all the kids downstairs, feeds them a snack, then throws her baby into the baby backpack and takes them all out for a bike ride. And to top it all off, makes dinner for us too.
Thank God for her.
And thank God for the mini-village in our house.
Parenting is hard. Damn hard. And it was never meant to be done alone. The saying, “It takes a village to raise a child,” I suspect has a lot to do with the support and encouragement that parents need through the incredibly difficult job of raising children.
The rain clouds have come again, but I feel all sunny inside.
Fiona is sleeping again!
For close to three weeks after we came back from our trip to Mexico, Fiona was waking up every 40 minutes (one sleep cycle) and it would take me FOREVER to get her back to sleep. Made me a little bit grumpy.
But, Hallelujah! She’s sleeping better now. Which is why I’m back on my computer again, instead of spending hours upon hours during the day trying to get to her sleep.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Elizabeth Pantley for your No Cry Sleep Solution and No Cry Nap Solution books!
I’m long overdue to do a posting about her lastest book, the No Cry Nap Solution, and it will be coming soon. I promise. It is a fabulous book.
My nephew, Will, 7 months now, has a mouth full of teeth already and is suddenly crawling and getting everywhere.
And into everything.
And suddenly making me realize that I need to BABYPROOF! It’s a great warm up for getting things ready for things to come with Fiona, now 4 months.
I have a love/hate relationship with traveling with kids. I love to travel. It inspires me and opens up my eyes to new possibilities and new ways of life. When I come home I feel tired, but re-charged, renewed, and re-excited about life.
Traveling with kids helps them to see themselves as a world citizen, that despite our differences, we are all very much the same. It helps them open up their minds to a world that is much greater and larger that what they see in their daily life. It fosters an appreciation for diversity and creates opportunities for practicing flexibility and adaptability.
We are not, by any means, well-off. But somehow we have managed to travel a lot since we’ve had kids. 12 trips in 5 years, to be exact. I think that because the first 5 years of our marriage we lived as poor, full-time university students, we learned how to live frugally. And to be OK with that. In the entire period of our marriage, almost 10 years, we haven’t had more that a span of a few months where we both worked full-time (at the same time). A double income allows for a lot more frivolous spending. We have chosen, for the well-being of our children, that one parent (me) will be at home with our children, to take advantage of the short, but crucial period in their lives for character development and maintaining a strong parental attachment, and all of the benefits that go with that. And so the other parent will bring home the income.
There are things that we just don’t do very often, like eating out at restaurants or buying lots of the newest, latest gadgets and toys, in order to live within our means, and maintain the choices that we have made. But one of the things we do value is travel. And so the money we are able to save, usually goes toward that.
When Isabela was 4 months old I flew to California and Arizona to visit grandparents and relatives. A month later my grandmother passed away and we all flew to Minnesota for her funeral. Later that year, just before she turned one, we spent a month in Venezuela, visiting all of Chris’ old stomping grounds. A year later we flew to California again to visit family and after a particularly rough trip, by myself with an almost two year old who wouldn’t sleep and wouldn’t nap during our trip, I came home exhausted and said, “Chris, let’s wait a while before we have any more kids!” Ironically, I had been feeling pretty sick during the trip and went to the doctor later that that morning, only to find out that I was pregnant with Diego. I figure that God had a good laugh at us over that one.
A few months later we did an overnight road trip (Chris stayed up all night driving while Isabela and I slept in the car) to Alberta for a family wedding. Later that year we visited California again and then went on a 5 week adventure to Taiwan (to visit Chris’ aunt and uncle), Malaysia (to visit my parents) and Bali (for a family vacation). Since then we have been to California again, this past summer, and now we have just returned back from Mexico.
Our trips have been so outstanding and memorable, but as is the case when traveling with kids, they have also been downright exhausting. The problem is that for an older child who can go to sleep by themselves AND sleep through the night, they can adapt and ajust quite easily. Not so easy with a baby. When we went to Malaysia, Diego was 11 months old AND SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT! It was wonderful. But after we came home from our trip, it took him 1 month to get over the jetlag and another 3 months before he started sleeping through the night again.
Which brings me to the present moment. I have been working HARD, VERY HARD, to get Fiona into a good sleeping routine and before we left she was doing great. Going to bed at 7pm, waking up a few times at night to feed, (which is normal for a three month old) and taking regular naps through the day. Now since we’ve been back, the only thing that’s predictable is that she will wake up crying 40 minutes after she fell asleep. And it will take me another 30-90 minutes to get her back to sleep. It will eventually straighten out again, but it feels a bit like all my hard work got flushed down the toilet pretty quickly.
But despite all of that, I have loved all of our trips and would do them again. But maybe I’ll wait until the two naps a day are gone. Or even better, until all the naps are gone. I had visions of fun, adventurous vacations in 3 years when we can frolick at the pool and beach all day and not have to worry about the disasterous effect of a child who has missed her nap.
And so, since we have been back from our trip, I have been exhausted. Falling asleep everytime I breastfeed and going to bed at 7:30pm (right after all the kids are in bed) kind of exhausted.
But yes. I would do it again.
TWO THINGS THAT HELPED FOR TRAVELING WITH KIDS:
1. The bag of tricks for the airplane.
I stocked up at the dollar store before we left and when we were traveling, particularily for the airplane when we have to sit in one place for so long, we systematically pulled a new item out at strategic intervals to maintain the peace. Playdough, plasticine, stickers, markers, paper, new books, new toys, lots and lots of snacks and juice.
And the icing on top of the cake was my iPod touch, which I dowloaded 50 children’s video podcasts (free on iTunes) with all their favorites: Sesame street, Dora, Diego, Blues Clues, etc. This was such a lifesaver for us on the trip. We even pulled it out during the second ceremony of my sister-in-law’s wedding when they started getting fidgety. They just watched the videos (without sound) there and everyone commented about how well-behaved our children were (heh heh).
2. Rent a condo
The second thing that I did right on this trip was to recognize our need for a 2-bedroom condo/apartment style place to stay. It cost a little more, but it was well worth the extra expense for the piece of sanity that it gave us. Isabela and Diego in one room, Fiona and I in another, and Chris out on the couch. That way we could all get a good night sleep in order to actually be able to enjoy our vacation. Plus there was a TV with tons of children’s channels. I am not a fan of TV in anyway at all, but I do appreciate it for those times when I think to myself, “OK, I could kill them, or I could let them watch TV.”
The other great thing about staying at a condo was that it had a kitchen. Let me tell you, after two days we got completely sick of restaurants with kids. We hit the big supermarket in town (it was like Costco – enormous!) and stocked up. After that we ate most of our meals in the condo, which saved us a lot of money and gave us more time for hanging out down by the pool and the beach.
Some photos from our trip, still to come.
This amazing photo is taken by Scott Miller or Blair Kent (thanks to Arezu who lead me to this link to figure out who took the photo.) It was sent to me as one of those email forwards and could be a bit tricky to figure out if you don’t know what you’re looking at.
FOG. We have been immersed in fog for the last two weeks. A rare thing for our city. This photo was taken from the top of Cypress Mountain, one of the local ski hills, with just a few of the skyscrapers from downtown peeking out over the clouds. Amazing.
The fog has been so beautiful and I have been itching to go out in it to take photos, but have been using every spare moment I have to pack and get ready for our big trip to Mexico tomorrow. My sister-in-law is getting married in Ixtapa, Mexico to her Mexican sweetheart which she met several years ago when she was doing a study abroad program there. When they mentioned that they would have the wedding up in Canada to make it easier for the rest of the family up here, we all said, NOOOOO! WE WANT TO GO TO MEXICO!
Now we are about to embark on our first “Family of Five” traveling adventure.
I decided not to take my new camera because I didn’t want to be worried about it during our stay. I am missing it already. Juliet just upgraded her camera and has a very sweet Nikon D90 now. She is teaching me so much about photography by sending me all sorts of interesting links and when I said I wasn’t going to take my Canon XSI, she said, “You will regret every photo you take.” Alas, this is true. But if last weekend, at the Baha’i Regional Conference was any indication for me, I will probably have Fiona on my lap the whole time and not even have a free hand to take my camera out of the bag.
So I am taking my point and shoot, Canon G4. Which really is not a crappy camera. When I bought it 5 years ago it cost $1100. But now that I have gotten used to a digital SLR camera, there is no turning back.
Well, speaking of crappy cameras, I took some shots on my camera phone (2 megapixel) at Isabela and Diego’s first dance class yesterday. Isabela has been asking me, twice a week for year, to go to dance class. Everything was a write-off when I was pregnant. The world came to a standstill. And now, almost exactly a year later I am just starting to get back on my feet. And so they began dance class.
(Not a bad photo, for a 2 megapixel phone camera!)
Diego spent the whole class hiding out behind a chair. I am determined not to push him into anything before he is ready. I still have vivid (and scarring) memories of Isabela running away from her swimming class, me running after her screaming to stop while holding Diego (still a baby), and the lifeguard running after all of us, blowing his whistle and telling us all to stop running. Ahhh. Some memories I’d rather forget.
So this time around, no pushing. When they are ready, as I have seen so clearly with Isabela, they are ready. And they just dive in on their own.
Fiona spent the whole dance class screaming on my lap. In the last two weeks, her routines have sunk in and her awareness of life has multiplied. If things are out of the ordinary, out of the normal routine, than she is not a happy girl. For example, most of the time I breastfeed her lying down. So now she gets really upset if I try to breastfeed her sitting up. This should be interesting on the airplane….
By sheer coincidence, both Fiona and Will were wearing the same outfit today (different sizes) that we got as gifts for Diego and Olee when they were babies. Which means, of course, photo shoot.
It has taken me three children to finally let go of the cultural stereotype that boys wear blue and girls wear pink. Fiona wears Diego’s hand-me-downs, which are blue, and Diego wears Isabela’s hand-me-downs, which are pink. When I first had Isabela, getting her all dressed up like a girly-girl was fun. And I still felt, in the back of my mind, that my children’s appearances reflected on me, as a mother.
Once she hit about 2 and a half years old, she refused to let me dress her or pick out her clothes. And so I started detaching. Now I applaud their efforts at dressing themselves and don’t care at all if their clothes are on backwards, mis-matched or pink for a boy, or blue for a girl. Generally I find that people who don’t have kids notice that kind of thing. But it seems that other parents with kids generally don’t care either.
I learned this lesson from Elizabeth Pantley’s book, “Hidden Messages: What our words and actions are really telling our children.” She used the example of a child making her bed and the parent praising her, but then straightening out a corner of the bed. It is a subtle thing, but when we correct their mistakes (on things that are really not that important), we teach them that they will never be good enough in our eyes.
And so I let them wear their pants backwards and their shoes on the wrong feet, because eventually they will figure it out. I am just thankful that they can do it by themselves.
Isabela so desperately wanted to be in this photo of moms and babies that she was sobbing and sobbing and kept diving into the photo. Which gives the photo a bit of character, I think. Full-fledged, do not forget me, Isabela character.
It seems to me that the most captivating photos are the ones that tell a story or that show real emotion. Like this one.
The Big Picture is a website that tells news stories through photos. It is captivating, disturbing, amazing and I couldn’t pull myself away from it.
These would be the news headlines of my life from the last few days:
WOMAN GETS PEED ON BY 3 YEAR OLD, THEN PUKED ON BY BABY.
WOMAN HAS MELT DOWN WHILE TRYING TO PACK FOR 5 PEOPLE.
BABY PICKS UP WOMAN’S STRESS, TAKES 3 HOURS TO FALL ASLEEP.
Fortunately all of the packing is done (I literally started a month ago) so I have the rest of the day to relax and let go of my stress before our travels. Some intu-flow, a hot bath, and lots of prayer, meditation, and affirmations is exactly what I need right now.
A good friend of mine who has four children told me recently that only having one child at home (while the other three are at school) is almost like having free time for herself.
Chris just left the house with Isabela and Diego for the weekend to visit his grandma on Vancouver Island. And even though I am at home with little Fiona, it feels like an incredible weekend off! Actually, it really is.
I always assumed (incorrectly) that the older kids got, the easier they got. It’s true that they can dress themselves, get their own breakfast, use the toilet by themselves, and so many other things that make parenting easier, but I didn’t know about all of the STRONG AND POWERFUL AND COMPLICATED emotions that came as they got older.
With the first child, every new challenge for them is also a new challenge for me. I wish parenting came easy for me. I wish that I lived in a place that truly supported stay-at-home parents and attachment parenting. I wish that I had started reading and studying about parenting long before I became a parent.
Somehow I muck my way through the muddy parenting puddle each day and hopefully learn a little more each day.
But now that I have baby number three, she really gets to benefit from all of the experience I have gained by making mistakes with my first child. Honestly, Fiona is so much easier compared to Isabela that I wonder just how much is the baby’s personality vs. the mother’s experience. Fiona is so relaxed and easy going, but I am so much more relaxed and easy going now. Isabela can be pretty high strung, but I was also pretty stressed and inexperienced when she was little.
Well, after these ponderings I am off to enjoy my relaxing weekend off. Maybe I will have a painting finished by the end of it. Or maybe I will just nap and watch movies.
This week we got our first snow, so I was inspired to do work on a snow painting. This painting above is an illustration that I did last winter. I sketched it, then took a photo and then “painted” it on photoshop. I always meant to paint it with watercolors as well, but just never got around to it.
Since we now have a new addition to the family, I wanted to add her into the painting. This is the illustration of the three kids playing out in the snow (although Fiona doesn’t exactly play – the instant we get outside and I put her in the sling, she falls asleep). I haven’t painted it yet, but since I’m feeling all snowy, I wanted to share the illustration.
Actually, I have to say, I really do love the snow. Perhaps it has something to do with growing up in Alberta, where we would get lots of “Snow Days” where we wouldn’t have to go to school because it was too cold for the school buses to start (usually around -20 celcius). Then we would spend the whole day playing outside!
I decided to give Isabela a “Snow Day” from school today because the roads are so icy right now and I get a wee bit stressed driving on icy, snowy roads. In Vancouver, since it snows so infrequently, we don’t have snow plows, shovels or salt for the icy roads. Everyone just expects it to melt pretty quickly. And when it doesn’t, there’s a lot of accidents.
In the summer, the campground we went to had nature classes for children called “Jerry’s Rangers” that Isabela LOVED. They learned about pine cones, bears and outdoorsy kinds of things. They also got to wear hats and got stickers at the end.
When we came home from camping, she started asking me for more Jerry’s Rangers classes. So now we all put on hats and we do a little class about something. Usually I read them a story, we watch a youTube video on the topic, then we dance and then do a craft.
Today’s Jerry Ranger’s class was about snowflakes.
In the afternoon we played out in the snow. One of the big highlights for the kids is making “snow treats” (snow with juice on it). Since we rarely drink juice, this is a big treat.
Ah, breastfeeding. Some days that feels like all I do. Like yesterday when Fiona went through a growth spurt and wanted to feed non-stop from 11am to 11pm and skip all her naps.
With my first child, it took me about 4 months until I felt like I really got the hang of breastfeeding and my nipples stopped hurting. Now, by the third child, I actually look at breastfeeding as multiple “mini-breaks” where I get to lie down and rest while Fiona drinks some milk.
Babies are so amazing. When they are born, they have a limited range of focus. It just so happens that the distance their eyes can focus is the length between their eyes and their mother’s eyes as they are breastfeeding.
And I have to say, there really is nothing sweeter than when they stare up at you while they are nursing and gaze so affectionately into your eyes.
(I actually did parts of this painting while breastfeeding Fiona!)
Yes. It’s true. An iPod touch put my baby to sleep.
Let me explain. When I first became a parent I thought that babies would naturally work out their sleep habits and start sleeping through the night on their own. Maybe some do. Mine don’t.
So when Isabela was a year and a half and waking up every hour to nurse, I was beyond desperate for a change. I checked out every sleep book from the library and poured through them, trying out a lot of techniques. It was a very painful process, to say the least, but I learned some important things.
The most important thing I learned was that any habit a child has, they have learned from their parents. And therefore any bad habit can be changed. It takes several weeks of consistency, but a bad habit can be changed.
HOWEVER, it is so very much easier to start them out with good habits. This includes healthy sleep habits.
When Diego was two months old, I was lucky enough that my sister had just finished reading an amazing sleep book, The No Cry Sleep Solution, and lent it to me. It has truly become my sleep bible and helped Diego sleep through the night really quickly.
So now comes along our little Fiona. I picked up The No Cry Sleep Solution immediately when I came home from the hospital with her to review how to get her to sleep at night and started implementing some of the techniques when she was three weeks old.
My goal was to get Fiona to go to sleep by 7pm at night. So I would get her ready for bed and be with her in a dark room, nursing and lying with her for hours, gently training her to go to bed early.
Well, hours in a dark room, trying to put a baby to sleep was frustrating with nothing to do. I would find myself getting angry and thinking, Why won’t you go to sleep already?
So this is where the iPod touch comes in.
At some point Chris says to me, Did you get all the applications working on your iPod yet?
And then I remembered….my iPod touch has internet, applications and hundreds of free games!
So let me tell you, this has been the most amazing thing. I no longer dread putting Fiona to bed at night in a dark room. I actually look forward to it. I read my email, surf the web and play games. And Fiona is now consistently going to bed between 7pm – 8pm at night!
(Painting by Stanislaw Wyspianski)
Did you know that it was possible calm almost any crying baby in about a minute or less? I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.
Just before Fiona was born, I went to a presentation by Dr. Harvey Karp, author of The Happiest Baby on the Block. It was a room full of crying babies and he went from baby to baby, instantly calming each one, while at the same time giving his presentation. It was like watching a magician and I was so excited to learn his techniques (and at the same time wondering why I hadn’t learned them when Isabela and Diego were babies!)
According to Dr. Harvey Karp’s research, babies are born with 5 calming reflexes that they carry over from the womb. They need them in the womb so that they stay calm and basically in one position, with their head down, so that they can be born without major complications.
So to calm your baby, you need to re-create a womb-like experience for them. He describes the process as the 5 S’s.
The 1st S – Swaddling
Babies are used to being snug and cozy inside the womb, so swaddling re-creates this. It also helps them to sleep better, and longer, because they oftentimes wake themselves up with their hands. Dr. Karp said that people usually use swaddle blankets that are too small, so the baby can squirm out of it. I made a great swaddle blanket sewing together 4 receiving blankets.
Here is a great video on how to swaddle a baby.
The 2nd S – Side/Stomach
Turn your baby onto it’s side or stomach (though when you put them down to sleep, you need to lie them on their back to prevent SIDS.)
The 3rd S – Shushing
The sound inside the womb is louder than a vacuum cleaner, so making a loud “Shhhhhhhh” sound triggers this calming reflex. You can also use external white noise, such as the static sound from a radio, vacuum cleaner, hair dryer, etc. The sound needs to be as loud as the crying, otherwise they won’t hear it.
These are two videos showing shushing. The first is with a hair dryer and the second is with the “shhhhh” sound.
The 4th S – Swinging
Dr. Karp described this as a head jiggle, and never a shake, which could lead to Shaken Baby Syndrome (which was, in fact, why he was here in Vancouver – presenting calming techniques to doctors at a Shaken Baby Syndrome conference. When parents can calm their baby quickly, they don’t get overwhelmingly frustrated by the cries and then shake their baby, which can lead to brain damage or death.)
The head and neck always need to be supported, but allow the head to do a Jello jiggle. Remember, the head was jiggling already for 9 months in the womb!
The 5th S – Sucking
Babies have a strong need to suck and it is very calming for them. In other cultures around the world, babies nurse 50-100 times a day, not just for the milk, but also for the need to suckle.
This is a video using only 4 of the 5 S’ to calm a baby.
Crying babies can create exhaustion, insecurity, interfere with nursing, create marital stress, postpartum depression, SIDS, Shaken Baby Syndrome, and child abuse. Handing out a copy of Dr. Harvey Karp’s DVD, the Happiest Baby on the Block, to all new parents seems like a simple solution for preventing many of those issues.
I’ve found that Fiona usually only needs two of the 5 S’s to calm her (the side/stomach hold and the head jiggle). It’s the most amazing feeling in the world to be able to calm your baby quickly! Chris instantly mastered the technique and started using the 5 S’s right from the moment Fiona was born.
Dunstan Baby Language
Alright. Now the next amazing discovery to calm your crying baby is by Priscilla Dunstan, creator of the Dunstan Baby Language.
She discovered that there are 5 sounds that babies make when they cry. The reflex lasts until they are 3 months, but will continue if their cries have been attended to.
Neh – hunger
The sound comes from the sucking reflex, when the tongue is pushed up to the roof of the mouth.
Owh – sleepy
The key to this sound is looking for a wide open mouth, that looks like a yawn.
Eh – burp
This sound means the baby needs to be burped and has an air bubble caught in the chest.
Heh – discomfort
The key to hearing this sound is to listen carefully for the “H” sound at the beginning. The discomfort could be too hot, too cold, or needing a diaper change.
Eairh – lower gas
This sound is produced when air is unable to be burped and moves down to the stomach and intestines, creating upset stomach and gas.
The cry sound that I have found the most helpful with Fiona is the “Eh” (needs to be burped). Oftentimes I feed her and then she passes out, only to wake up a few minutes later needing to be burped. Listening for the “Eh” sound has helped me to distinguish between her funny sleep sounds (when I can just leave her and she’ll go back to sleep) and her actual need to be lifted up to be burped.
Good luck calming your baby!
Chris went back to work tomorrow, on his 33rd birthday, after taking 4 weeks off work to watch and care for Isabela and Diego. This time has truly been the greatest gift for me, allowing me to rest, heal, and slowly come back to life. It has also been a time of bonding with Fiona and learning how to care for her.
Here is are a few of the amazing things that Chris did while he was at home these last 4 weeks:
1. Got Diego out of using naptime diapers.
2. Trained the kids to put away their own clean clothes from the laundry pile into their drawers in their rooms.
3. Did all the shopping, cooking, dishes, and cleaning!
4. Got Isabela into her kindergarten classroom quickly and easily, without a fight.
5. Trained Diego to stay in his room during naptime and bedtime, while keeping the door slightly opened (he learned how to open the childproof door handle just a few weeks ago).
What an incredible husband and father!
For his birthday, he even made most of his birthday dinner (since I spent most of the afternoon breastfeeding Fiona). Persian gormeh sabzi and flan. We also had brownies and banana splits to celebrate his birthday. Yum!
Unfortunately, after only two days on my own with all three kids, I developed a severe case of mastitis (breast infection that brings on flu like symptoms and intense breast pain). My body was telling me, in no subtle way, to slow down, and find a new rhythm and pace of life with three kids. I had tried to just jump back into my old routines, but my body, and Fiona, are demanding something new.
I think, for now, that means keeping everything as simple as possible and not taking on anything extra.
I always love finding toys that are well-used, well-loved and that you really get your money’s worth from. The toy stroller ($5) is just such an item in our house.
It all started on our trip to Venezuela, back in 2004, when Isabela was one year old. The family we were staying with had a 5 year old daughter who loved to push Isabela around in her toy stroller. We came home and bought one and it has since carried every child in the house (and been sewn back together countless times!)
Isabela, 2004
Debra pushing Isabela, 2004
Uncle Kevin pushing Isabela, 2005
Olee, 2005
Isabela pushing Olee, 2005
Diego, 2006
Isabela pushing Diego, 2006
Diego pushing Isabela, 2007
Fiona, 2008
Isabela and Diego pushing Fiona, 2008
