Slowly but surely, transitioning to a toddler bed

We have taken a second step toward moving Roscoe from his swing to somewhere that is not his swing. For a long time, I assumed that "somewhere" would be his crib. After careful consideration we decided to skip the crib altogether and go straight to a mattress on the floor.

On Saturday afternoon we disassembled his crib and reorganized his room.

Roscoe now has an upgraded reading corner, and a mattress on the floor.

We hope that he'll take to this arrangement. Knowing him, he will not. So we have postponed until next weekend step three of our "as we go" plan, which will be to persuade Roscoe to sleep in his new bed.

What did you find helpful in facilitating this transition for your little ones?

Second time this week!, he sleeps in his crib

He fell asleep in his crib. It only lasts about 45 minutes and then he stirs and we move him to his swing. But STILL! He's making progress all on his own.

When will my cycle return?

I hope not to jinx the three of us by writing this post, but I do believe we've solved all but two of Roscoe's sleep challenges.

The two items still up for resolution include our reliance on the swing for sleep, and Roscoe's shifted circadian rhythm that compels him to fall asleep for the night at 4:00 pm and wake for the day at 4:00 am.

Otherwise, Roscoe takes roughly three 1-hour naps, falls asleep on cue, and most exciting he's sleeping through the night! And not in a "5-hours = sleeping through the night" sort of way reserved only for babies. He wakes once around 11:00 pm for a diaper change, and once around 1:00 am for a meal.

With an ecological nurser*, I've recently become anxious curious about when my cycles will return. Within the next 4 months would be ideal--a February or March baby would make me very happy! I've had no interest in manipulating Roscoe's nursing routine before he turns 1 year, but I do welcome this natural progression of cutting out the nighttime nursing sessions as it brings us one step closer to baby #2.

*nursing on cue, keeping baby close, providing all nourishment and liquids at the breast for the first five to eight months, and nursing to comfort the baby. It does not include the use of bottles or pacifiers, mother-baby separation, parent-imposed feeding schedules or restriction of night nursings.

RIP The Swing

Remember this?

Here I sit on the floor of Roscoe's room, in the dark of the blackout shade, MANUALLY pushing his swing. I'm going on a half hour now. I admit that we have not made it a priority to transition Roscoe out of The Swing, primarily because the thought of making sleep worse (even in the short term) is an awful one.

Now we will pay!

Roscoe weighs around 18 pounds and while the swing's weight limit is 25lbs, I believe the motor has made its last revolution. All good things must come to an end.

Mid afternoon nap I noticed the swing had slowed to a halt, despite the fact that we just replaced the batteries this morning. After a quick panic and phone call to Andy it is obvious we have only one option. The swing must be replaced!

Update:

After 45 minutes of swing pushing, Roscoe woke up and we hightailed it to babies r us where we perused a sorry selection of swings, called in a request for Andy to do a little review search online, and left with a weird patterned Graco Lovin' Hug PLUG-IN(!!!!!!) swing.

Andy came home early to assemble the the swing--reviews warned it was a bear! And Roscoe eased into his nap without a fuss.

I wish we would have made the switch a couple months back. The two key features that have me dancing with joy: it accommodates babies up to 30 pounds and it plugs in! Freedom from D cell batteries and their exorbitant weekly costs. And we will not miss the abrupt wakes in the middle of the night (or nap) because the batteries died without notice. No more ear-to-the-monitor anxiety just waiting for the telltale click, pause. click, pause. click, pause. of a dead swing. Finally, the white noise "button" that we've come to rely on (heavily) plays for 30 minutes instead of seven, which can't be beat.

It's also become apparent in the past week or two that the swing itself may be a contributing factor to poor sleep--it's a little small and probably a tad uncomfortable, it conks out on him during his best dreams, etc.

The new swings' capacity doesn't change the fact that we need to wean Roscoe from the swing, but it does buy us more time. Need proof that this swing is awesome? Roscoe's been sleeping soundly for over 5.5 hours! I'm a happy momma when my baby is rested.

More zzzzz's please

When we first decided to stage a sleep intervention, our primary goal was to improve the quality and quantity of Roscoe's sleep in any way we could. The No Cry Sleep Solution has been my handy reference ever since.

For babies like Roscoe, who wake frequently during each sleep cycle, a trick we read in the NCSS is to intervene with whatever means typically used to soothe the baby (nursing, pacifier, etc.) just before he wakes up in an effort to prevent him from fully waking--now I always have an ear out for the smallest little squeak or rustle, and I've perfected my sprint on tip-toe between his room and ours, which is connected by a long hall. We found that pushing the white-noise button on his swing usually does the trick. As the theory goes, the baby will become accustomed to sleeping for longer intervals and will eventually do so without any intervention. I definitely see this happening at night, but his nap time sleep still requires a lot of button pushing.

Roscoe's naps are much more predictable and he's naturally gravitated toward a schedule of two naps a day, one each at 9:00 and 1:00. Consistent nap times not only offer great structure to the day, but they are a sanity saver since I can count on having a specified chunk of time to get out of the house without worry over disrupting his routine.

Thankfully, putting Roscoe to sleep is no longer a struggle. Gone are the days of efforts greater than two hours to convince him to sleep. I'm more effective at reading his "I'm sleepy" cues, and we've created a calm predictable routine that lets him know that it's time to wind down and prepare for sleep. A big (and awesome) improvement is that he no longer needs to be nursed to sleep. Nursing is often the last step to our routine, but most of the time he is awake or drowsy when I transfer him to the swing. With a better appreciation for timing, there is little to no fussing involved.

For now, Roscoe takes his naps and sleeps during the night in his swing. Luckily, we didn't have to transition to this arrangement because he was already comfortable sleeping in his swing during nap time. Andy and I have changed our sleeping arrangements as well, and we're currently camped out in our guest bedroom, which is next-door to the nursery, in order to be closer to Roscoe. We also hooked up our baby monitor to help decrease our response time. While I miss my baby's body curled next to mine, and the little dance he does with his toes on my belly, I don't mind the chance to share a bed just with Andy, or to sleep on my back again.

His night wakes have improved dramatically from once every hour and a half to once every 3 to 4 hours, and the past two nights he woke only twice: once at 11:30 and once at 3:30. Andy and I have been side eying each other over this all day. We don't want to get too excited, but this is pretty major!

Overall, Roscoe logs about 13 hours of night and nap sleep, which still falls about an hour short of the range for his age. And he does continue to stir frequently, but I no longer nurse him at every transition--hurray!--and with the help of the button (which isn't needed all the time) he is getting better at falling back to sleep on his own.

In addition to a new sleep routine, we now feed him solids after he wakes from each nap. This gives me a small break, since other people can feed him, and it ensures he gets a larger (hopefully more satisfying) milk meal when he does nurse. Amazingly, in less than three weeks he actually gained 2 pounds which is a big deal for him considering his average weight gain has been about one pound/month since birth.

Most importantly, Roscoe seems much happier. His attention span is greater, and he doesn't require constant cajoling or distraction. He seems to have more energy to invest in reaching milestones, and giggling. I do feel like we've accomplished a lot and I am proud that my effort has made such an impact. Despite feeling miserable much of the time, the payoff is worth it.

Of course, there is still room for improvement so looking to the next 10 days we're going to focus on being even more consistent with a formal nap and bedtime routine, work on transitioning Roscoe from the swing to his crib (because at 7.5 months, his mobility poses a safety hazard), and eliminating the button pushing.

I can't say that Andy and I feel like new yet, but our hopes are high and our fingers are crossed for more zzzzzzzzz's.

Silent Night

I wish this post was about how Roscoe miraculously slept through the night. Instead, it is about how he did just the opposite.

Running on 2 or 3 hours of sleep Wednesday morning, I canceled the Nanny, demanded that Andy stay home to help me, and then turned to begin a full days work. I felt like I had hit bottom.

As things go in parenting, "it's not a problem, unless you think it's a problem."
Your kid will sleep only if he's nursed to dreamland? You love the quality time? Thumbs Up!! Your kid demands to be held at all times? You're more than happy to drop everything and tote the little one? Lucky babe! Your kid wakes every hour during the night? Your eyes are burning, your patience is whittled, and you can no longer function as a human being? Understood.

A good piece of advice (parenting or otherwise): if you don't like it, change it.
So we implemented change, and I'm happy to report that progress is being made. But the effort is all-consuming. In fact, I literally have not left the house since last Thursday. SIX DAYS AGO. We did have a snowstorm over the weekend, which accounts for 2.5 days of shut-in, but the rest are a result of an attempt to determine what Roscoe's sleep needs truly are, when distractions like traveling or outings are absent.

For the time being, Roscoe sleeps in the swing in his room for naps and night sleep. I have a philosophy about bed sharing, and I feel that it's being compromised. If all was going well, my preference would be for Roscoe to sleep with us. I also have a philosophy about crying, and I feel that it, too, is being compromised. I'm not talking cry-it-out here, I'm just saying that in an effort to differentiate his needs, he is sometimes left to cry longer than I would like.

The emotional aspect of this whole fiasco is way more than I could have guessed. There's nothing like knowing what your child needs and not being able to provide it or, in this case, coax it into fruition on a reasonable timetable. We're dealing with sleep here, which cannot come fast enough. And the reality is that while Andy is a willing and engaged Poppa, Roscoe's sleeping and eating needs disproportionately demand more of Momma. The demands are persistent, around the clock, and I just can't catch a break. Showering? Gyming? Brushing my teeth? Not happening. Well, maybe every other day, and it's the very last thing I find time to do before my head hits the pillow.

I've been reduced to a ball of stress, anger, exhaustion, and self pity. It's difficult to share our sleep troubles with parenting "values" on one hand, and a long list of complaints on the other. Without sounding like a martyr, I know that I made this bed (no pun intended) with my parenting choices. And hopefully, when Roscoe learns how to sleep better we will be able to go back to what once worked.

When Andy looks me in the eye and says, "I want to make it through parenting without getting a divorce." I know why I married him. And I also get that I'm stretching myself so thin that I'm ready to break.

After the night of no sleep, discouraged doesn't quite describe the way we were feeling.

we suck.
Now that sounds about right.

Parenting FAIL.
Also applicable.

I was this close to grabbing Roscoe and tucking him back into bed with us.

But then we decided to be rational. We chose to communicate and we decided to make a list--lists always make things better, right?! We broke down the ways that Roscoe used to fall asleep, the duration of his naps, the number of hours he slept, and compared them to where he is now a little less than 2 weeks later and we couldn't help but pat ourselves on the back because actually, there is improvement in every area except between the hours of 11pm and 7am (the hours during which Andy and I are trying to sleep, of course).

Yes, in a lot of ways we feel worse than we did before we started this experiment. But we should have known that things would get worse before they got better. We'll have a more scientific analysis of Roscoe's sleep, and more quantifiable results after the Christmas festivities have ended. In the meantime, we will continue with our crusade and apologize to our family and friends--who haven't seen or heard from us in weeks.

Sleep Training. kind of. The No Cry Sleep Solution

We are obsessed with sleep. or lack thereof. It's all we can think about. Exhaustion has set in after almost 3.5 months of tending to Roscoe every hour, day and night. The three of us are cranky, dysfunctional, and starting to feel a little crazy as our ability to cope with the demands of our new life has been whittled away.

As a breastfeeding mom it's hard not to beam with smug satisfaction when all goes well, and also feel that I've let Roscoe down now that things aren't. Ever since the Pediatrician suggested that Roscoe's growth may be affected by his constant snacking and poor sleep habits, I can't help but take it personally.

Our parenting philosophy has always centered around Roscoe. Observe the baby. Follow the baby's lead. We didn't seek a schedule and instead tended loosely to a "routine" that varied from day to day, as needed. I never felt it was necessary to manage the way that Roscoe ate or slept in large part because I took extended maternity leave and then did not return to a work schedule that required Roscoe to make any major adjustments. I felt free to go with the flow.

Of course there are any number of variables at play here, but if I had to pinpoint any one event or catalyst, I think that our troubles began when Roscoe was about 3.5 months old and I figured out how to nurse while lying down. During the night, instead of moving to a chair to nurse, or propping myself up to sit with him in bed, I started to nurse him while lying on my side which allowed me to fall back asleep after he latched. This meant more sleep for me--heck neither of us really fully awoke--but it also meant that Roscoe probably missed out on the other half of his meal, which may have contributed to his habit of frequent nursing, and a pattern of frequent wakes.

The more we've tuned into the situation the more obvious it is that that our "routine" just isn't working. At almost 7 months, Roscoe wakes between 10 and 12 times during the night, and his morning "nap" occurs within 30 minutes to an hour after he wakes up. In general, his naps typically last between 30 and 45 minutes and he wakes up from them yawning, fussy, and clearly unrested. It is rare if he is awake for more than an hour before he begins to show signs of fatigue. Some days he acts tired all day.

Every failed nap or sleeping difficulty now triggers a rush of cortisol while a little voice in my head screeches, "this is AFFECTING HIS HEALTH!!" And that is where I draw the line.

The sleepless night saga has unfolded over the past few months and I have resisted implementing any particular sleep training method because I don't really believe in that...but desperation is a great motivator so I decided to take a girlfriend up on her suggestion and bought both the No Cry Nap Solution and the No Cry Sleep Solution. The books arrived last week which coincided nicely with Roscoe's weigh-in, and I read them cover to cover in a matter of days. The more I read the more wound up I became. The dots are connected: we have a lot of issues on our hands.

The No Cry Sleep Solution (NCSS) begins with a detailed nap log, pre-bedtime log, and nighttime sleep log. We completed all three and learned that Roscoe does not get the amount of sleep that a baby his age needs (he gets about 12.5 hours total nap and night sleep, when he should be getting 14-15 hours), he also has a serious suck-to-sleep association, which is no surprise since we cosleep and I have always nursed him on demand. According to the NCSS the fact that he wakes approximately every 30 minutes to an hour indicates that he is not completing a full sleep cycle--in fact a nap less than an hour is considered a "cat nap" and doesn't even count--and that he relies on external factors (i.e., nursing) to help him back to sleep each time he wakes. Those are the biggies, but there is more: our bedtime routine is insufficient, his nap routine is nonexistent, when he is not sleeping with us he sleeps only in his swing--which he is quickly outgrowing. Oy! Where to begin?!

The second part of the NCSS is to choose "solutions" based on what you've learned from the logs. The bottom line is that we now have a plan, and we're taking action instead of feeling sorry for ourselves. The sleep plan we've created coupled with a new approach to feeding will hopefully turn things around for us. I will check back in 10 days after we do another set of logs and hopefully some progress will have been made.

A breakthrough at 6 months, 3 weeks: The No Cry Sleep Solution

Roscoe's Pediatric office has three locations. The one closest to us happens to be the oldest, the busiest, and the most run-down. We also haven't yet found a provider in the practice who we really like. On recommendation we made an appointment with Dr. Kaplan at the Lorton office which is sparkling new, but because he has such a loyal following, the earliest appointment we could snag was today.

Roscoe's "6 month" appointment (at 6 months, 3 weeks ) was quite eventful.

Roscoe was vaccinated against H1N1 and Influenza (yay!), as well as DTaP, and PCV. They don't like to give more than 4 vaccines at any one visit, so we made another appointment six weeks from now to complete the original 6 month immunization schedule, and the second doses of the two influenza vaccines.

Roscoe now weighs...wait for it... 14 pounds (!). First the 8th percentile, then the 5th, then the 3rd, and now the 1st--which led to a lengthy discussion that covered nursing, solids, and sleep.

The bottom line is that there is value in encouraging Roscoe to go longer between nursings. Specifically, the doc suggested Roscoe nurse approximately every 4 hours--which seems like a stretch to me--but it's a goal that we can work toward, especially now that he is eating solids regularly.

The idea is to feed him solids in between nursing so that he eats every 2 hours, but nurses only every four. This will hopefully translate to Roscoe ingesting a greater quantity of milk (particularly hind milk) at each feed, which will help him stay satisfied for increasingly longer periods of time. And if we are very lucky, this may also facilitate fewer night wakings and subsequent feedings, and result in better sleep for everyone.

Also, the fact that Roscoe wakes up approximately every hour means that his sleep cycles are being cut way short and that he may in fact be overtired much of the time, which could explain his high maintenance tendencies. If we can help him learn to nurse less frequently we may ultimately alleviate several of our problem issues.

Our visit today with Dr. Kaplan was the very first in which we felt respected and supported by our provider, and engaged in a dialogue that had our family's best interests at the heart of it.

The past 6 months have been pretty exhausting and we're the first to admit that we haven't had the energy to implement change even when we wanted to. Our eyebrows are raised with anticipation for what this new approach might mean and we're looking forward to getting started.

Problems with baby sleep, is it the weekend yet?

Another insane week. No sleep, marathon breastfeeding, and work non-stop.

Around 3.5 months, Roscoe went from waking once or twice a night, to waking every hour. At first, I attributed it to 4 month sleep regression, but now that he's almost 5.5 months, I've really started to wonder what the heck is going on.

Our nights begin around 6 or 7. We get Roscoe ready for bed, we read books, he nurses, and we tuck him into his swing. One hour later he wakes up. I nurse him, and put him back into his swing. An hour later he wakes up, he nurses, into the swing he goes. Aaaaand an hour later, he wakes up, and we bring him into our bed. Lights out. The days of typing, reading, or catching up on Grey's Anatomy are totally over--way too distracting for him, apparently.

For the remainder of the night, Roscoe wakes ON THE HOUR to nurse until, rise-and-shine! It's 7 am.

Add to this a daily routine that consists of two ~30 minute naps and you have two bewildered parents who are now running on empty. Doesn't the boy need sleep? Needless to say, Andy and I definitely do.

I called the hotline at Roscoe's pediatrician's office and the nurse I spoke with was sympathetic but offered nothing in the way of useful advice. Actually, no less than two minutes after I explained that Roscoe was exclusively breastfed she suggested I put rice in his milk to help him sleep longer....

No help there.

Then I called my midwife who I love. Our thought is that Roscoe is just in the habit of nursing. For food, comfort, warmth, boredom, snuggles, etc. So Andy and I are going to try something different this weekend and after I've tanked him up, we're going to see if it's possible to distract Roscoe with other (non boob related) activities that we know he otherwise enjoys, and see if we can begin to space out the nursing. Hallelujah. I hope it works.

As for my job, one challenge inherent to telecommuting is the lack of distinct separation between work and home. Like an addiction, I can't stop checking my work email throughout the day. Roscoe's naps used to be my only downtime, now I'm spending them checking and rechecking my inbox. I'm going to have to establish some boundaries because I'm getting paid by the hour and I'm a part-time employee.

This week I made another successful in-office visit with Nanny M (who continues to be superb) and Roscoe in tow. The thing that made it all worth it in the end was a single Georgetown Cupcake. Yum. I want more.

Going back to work has made for a difficult transition, even with my reduced hours and under ideal conditions. Finding balance is awfully hard these days.