Mindspace

Sleep training Update

Latest report, the child slept at her usual times today. No sleeping in till 8am, 1 hour at 11.30, and 30mins at 3pm. Down without a squeak tonight. Perhaps it was just a phase.

Sleep Training Pt 2

So God's been trying to humble me after my sleep training post, natalie's been a bear to put down these last couple of days. Just when i am riding my high horse of what a great sleeper she is. ( Actually i am always aware of how fragile the equation is )
We've had a couple of nights when we've been out and missed PM naps and gone down at 8pm and woken up at 9pm, and oh she is so cute let's play for a while and then down at 10pm. i like how this one author puts it in Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, we need to "protect" our kids sleep. We've had visitors, fun evening activities. The child's been adorable. So these last few nights, she just been fighting her bedtime.
So i've been raking my brain about what is causing it. She has been missing her PM nap in the day so she should be exhausted by bedtime, i put her down 30 mins early and she is wired till 8pm.
Is she going through a growth spurt?
Is she strong-willed and testing me?
Is she over stimulated and too tired to sleep? ( probably)
Does she just need me in the room?
Am i abandoning her?
Should i just stay with her?
I was raking my brains all night till this morning i woke up! Eureka! i have been experimenting putting natalie back down in the morning after her morning milk. She's been getting up at 6.30 an hour early since spring started. So these mornings, i've gotten her to take her milk and sleep in till 8pm. With that extra "nap", it makes sense that she needs less sleep in the day and chooses a 8pm bedtime!
They asked me if my brain goes dead with the new baby, it goes to figuring these complex equations out : ) i am always tickled at how the variables are always logical, constant and understandable! if i take the time to observe!

Sleep Training

Natalie and i just came home from a baby shower and there were 2 newborns there and the moms were talking about sleep. It's so funny to look back at natalie's early days with sleep and how obsessed i was with it.
i definitely went into mommyhood with very clear ideas about what i wanted to do with natalie. Or rather what i didn't want to do. It's funny how you cling to those ideas from childhood. i remembered as a child, my aunty turning on music for her infant/toddler and closing the door and that was nap time. i remembered friends of ours that held their babies to sleep all day or walked them to sleep in their baby bjorn till 18 months. and i had horror stories from enoch's mom about how they had to drive him around and around central park to get him to sleep.
It's funny how things stick with you, and i went into motherhood, knowing with a huge sense of gravity that my actions had consequences on my child.
So natalie had a "schedule" since birth, but i would call it a meticulous tracking of her patterns. She never slept in our room -- because i was a co-sleeper and i still want to sleep with my parents at age 32. i yelled at anyone who held my child to sleep those early months -- the nanny, the grandparents, the in-laws. i yelled at everyone who kept her up during her nap time. She still sleeps to the "heartbeat" music that she's slept to from birth. And she still has a routine that i deviate only irregularly from.
But the more i talk to moms, and the few that do ask for my advice and the more i see how their babies respond to the "heartless advice" i give them, the more i realize this is so intuitive. Children ... heck even adults crave routine. They love rituals, they love patterns. Sleep is trained, it's not a natural phenomenon, i've seen myself corner myself into insomnia and sickness when i let my sleep-training go. So i'm heartless about pacifiers and co-sleeping. But natalie will never go through the trauma of leaving my room. She'll never have to re-train to sleep at 7.30pm when she has to go to school which she would have to do for more than a third of her life. She sleeps by herself, in her crib, in her pack'n play where-ever we go.
She's given us our evenings and nights since she was 10 weeks old.
And as the moms fall over themselves with surprise with how naturally their babies respond to cluster feeding and day nap organization and a consistent routine at night -- i really believe that it's not rocket science.
It's not about Babywise, or Baby Whisperer. It's thinking long-term not short-term about your baby, it's about listening to what they're telling you past the crying and the instant gratification of making them stop no matter what. It's taking the hard way because i can choose to suffer now, so that my baby will have an easier time transitioning to life later.
i don't think i'll be fighting anyone this second time round.

Pauses

i am learning to force myself to take a nap whenever natalie does. if anything, to just get into bed. everytime i don't, when i watch tv over lunch or something, i pay for it. the sound of her stirring from her nap makes me exhuasted. it seems like such a luxurious waste of time, and it is a huge decision because basically it means i spend "every waking moment" with the kid; and everything i do, i have to do balancing her needs. but these days it seems like my energy is on such a weird reserve , i am learning to treasure it and learn how to restore it. if my 18 month old needs a nap, i do too. it reminds me of the time when she was still on breast-milk and i had to pump like 6 times a day. 6 times a day i would sit in my dutalier glider and journal. it was a pause from the hectic-ness of new motherhood and it gave me clarity. i wish i could journal while asleep in the day but at least i wake up with new energy.

as i lay you down

today you regard me
as i lay you down,
blanket covering
on a softness
you insist,
your face scrunched up to
thr routine ritual of
a bedtime protest
but i catch you
mid-whimper
& blow you a kiss
over & over
as you look at me
half amused
& bemused
as if gathering each one
mid-air

Night Longings

When she is asleep
Lord,
i miss her
squiggly, demanding
ever needy
ever needing
a feed or a change
every needing me to listen
to a squeak or a laugh.
i am on call.
and finally
when she is till
i ache for her
to fill my arms
the separation is wistful
sorrowful.
at night
i hear it clearest
when she sleeps
away,
apart
from me

Morning

Up close
we share the same breathing
it took me a while
to get past the self conciousness
of morning breath
begoggled glasses
to believe you'd recognize me.
You always do
with a joy unspeakable
new and delighted
and i always am in awe
how you can see me
with ruffled hair
and mumbling words
and you still know
it's me.