WFMW: Sleeping Through the Night is a Myth

Once again, my baby is proving to me that sleeping through the night is a myth. Some families may get lucky, but by and large, if your kid sleeps through the night, you’d better enjoy it while you can, because it’s not going to last. And “whatever you do, don’t, under any circumstances…” TALK ABOUT IT!

On Monday night, Christian climbed into bed and said, “Hey, Nicholas hasn’t been up at night in a while, has he?”

I pinched my lips shut and said, “Umm…I’m not answering that.”

But the damage was done. That night it was three wakings. I patted him briefly the first two and ignored him the third, and he whimpered and fussed softly until he went back to sleep.

And then there was last night. At 1:20 a.m. he woke up shrieking. I got him out of bed, because he’d fallen on his head earlier in the evening and I was a little freaked out. So he got a pass that time, and snuggled back to sleep on Mommy’s chest.

At 2:40a.m. he was up again. And this time, he was up to stay. I patted him, but that had no effect, and Julianna began waking up. So I took him into our closet, where we have a blanket spread on the floor for this very purpose, and went back to bed to wait until his outrage spent itself. (This sounds terrible, but our closet is HUGE, and I always make sure there’s light in there.) Trouble is, in the last week, he’s really started army crawling with a purpose. So next thing I knew, his voice was getting louder as he scooted his way toward the open door of the bathroom.

Christian changed his diaper, took him downstairs and fed him some yogurt, then tried to rock him to sleep. No luck.

Christian put him in the guest bedroom in the basement so his crying wouldn’t wake the other two kids, and I took over. Shortly, Nicholas’s voice began fading, and I realized he was crawling into the guest room closet. Now, that closet is a catch-all storage space, and particularly in this season of boxes coming in and out, the stacking job is precarious. So I went to rescue him, and we snuggled up together on the spare bed until he went to sleep. Then I took him back to his crib…and off he went again.

By now I was aware that there had been far too much intervention. So I put him in the closet again, and Christian and I laid awake listening to him pull himself around the room, until finally, he subsided into intermittent gripes, and then, sleep.

That was shortly before 5 a.m.

So much for getting up at 5:30 to write.

It seems clear that some other solution is necessary. We can’t just close the door and ignore him, because Julianna is in that bedroom, too. But moving Nicholas doesn’t seem to be working—especially since he is no longer a stationary baby. So tonight, we are going to bring the sleeping bag into our room, and when Nicholas gets up, we’ll bring Julianna in to sleep. Nicholas will just have to stay in his crib, and learn to deal with it, the same as his big brother and big sister did.

Perhaps I’m fudging by posting this for WFMW, since we haven’t tried it yet…but so be it. Will this work for me? Stay tuned for the next episode of….PARENTING MYTHBUSTERS…

Published in: on December 9, 2009 at 10:32 am  Comments (5)  
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Banana Storms

Motherhood Moments

Precious moments. We’ve all had them—those moments that make your heart catch every time you remember them. No matter how often you revisit them, they never get stale or lose their power. Tender or funny, poignant or inspiring, they fortify us against toddler tantrums and pubescent (and pre-school) power struggles.

Leave a comment sharing your moment—or, if you’re feeling ambitious enough to write a whole post (or want to link from your own blog), email me and I’ll use your story as the moment of the day.

***

Tap, tap, tap. The knock dragged me up from blissful, uninterrupted (up till then, at least) sleep. “Come in, Alex,” I said sleepily. The door skidded along its frame and swung open, and I put my hand out as he came to meet me. “What’s up, honey?”

“Mommy, I had a dream, and there was a banana storm,” he said. “And Juweanna couldn’t reach me, and Nichowuss fell in the water and I couldn’t save him. He fell off the edge.”

“Oh, my goodness,” I said, waking up fully, because that was a serious dream for such a little guy. “Come on, let’s get you tucked back in.”

I shepherded him back across the hall, shaking my head at the convergence of events that led to such a dream—because I knew them all. Banana storm: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Falling in the water: Farmer Boy, which Christian had read to him at bedtime. Nicholas falling off the edge: he was scooting all over the bed while I was teaching that night, and I held onto his feet as he wiggled himself right over the edge and hung there, bemused, staring at the floor. We thought it was cute at the time, but in the dead of night, cute becomes something much darker.

“I’m glad it was a dream,” he said.

“Me, too, honey,” I said. “That’s something we can thank God for, when we wake up from a bad dream—that it’s not real.”

I tucked him in and kissed him goodnight again before heading back to bed myself. “Banana storms,” Christian chuckled. “You gotta watch out for those banana storms.”

Published in: on November 19, 2009 at 1:41 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Thursday Motherhood Moment

Motherhood Moments

Precious moments. We’ve all had them—those moments that make your heart catch every time you remember them. No matter how often you revisit them, they never get stale or lose their power. Tender or funny, poignant or inspiring, they fortify us against toddler tantrums and pubescent (and pre-school) power struggles.

Leave a comment sharing your moment—or, if you’re feeling ambitious enough to write a whole post (or want to link from your own blog), email me and I’ll use your story as the moment of the day.

***

Today I’m going to offer a visual reflection on the best time of the day. That time when everything grows quiet, and Mommy gets a chance to rest, or to work, without being interrupted every three minutes by someone’s wordless (or wordy) plea for attention. (Unlike right now…two hours into drafting this very simple blog post!) These quiet times are a blessing…especially when they’re unexpected:

Alex sleeping in chair

No, I don't need a nap, I'm a big boy!

…when the peace of it brings peace to Mom’s harried, overcommitted soul…

Nicholas in crib

…and when it’s just plan cute!

100_4963

Oh…don’t you just envy that relaxation?

Published in: on November 12, 2009 at 12:15 pm  Comments (2)  
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Yes, but…

This is shaping up to be one of those weeks. The busy factor is stratospheric this week, with the addition of small faith group leader training (why did I volunteer to lead? Because I’m a sucker), auditions for the national anthem, and a garage sale this weekend. Mid-week, and virtually no spouse time, because at 9:15p.m. we have mountains of dishes to do. Naturally, this is when Nicholas decides to escalate his already-unreasonable two wakings a night up to three. A six-month-old, waking up three times at night. Children who refuse to nap at the same time. A four-year-old with an attitude, an inability to go to the bathroom without being told, and a knack for breaking everything he puts his hands on.

These are the days when I want to shake my fist at Heaven and say, What is up with this? Cut me a break, already!

I lie awake gnashing my teeth, seething with resentment because I couldn’t get my husband to wake up and take care of Julianna. And inside my head, the gentle voice of the Spirit nudges me. Cool it, Kate.  You’ve been getting up three times a night for almost a week now, and you’ve been functioning just fine, albeit kind of tired. Tomorrow you’ll have to do Grandma’s thing.

But it’s not fair! There’s so much to do tomorrow. Emails to return. Faith sharing group members to call. I just want to SLEEP!

Yes, and lying awake being pissy is just going to make you feel worse come morning. You get to choose how you handle this: with resentment, or with grace.

Can’t you just make Nicholas sleep through the night?

Maybe he’s teething. That’s what it was with Julianna.

Ugh, she finally gets all her teeth and starts sleeping, and now it’s him. Is it ever going to end?

Yes, Kate, someday your kids will all be grown up and out of the house. Now get your attitude in line.

All right, all right. Thank You that Christian did get up and pat Nicholas down. Even if he did have to get up and use the bathroom first, so I had to go in first so Julianna didn’t wake up too. I always go straight to the kids and just wait on the bathroom.

This is not a very good start, Kate.

All right, all right. Thank you that Christian was willing to take over, and didn’t complain.

Now: gratitude for Nicholas waking.

Okay, now that’s just going too far. There is nothing to be grateful about getting up three times a night!

Yes, but Nicholas is really cute.

Well, yes.

And he has an amazing laugh. It was five minutes’ of entertainment during leader training last night.

And he’s into everything, which is such an amazing thing to watch after how slowly everything has gone with Julianna. And sitting up!

And Alex is spreading his wings, making new friends, learning the school time routine, and loving every minute of his time there.

And someone else is doing 90% of the garage sale work.

And I have respite care this week.

And I’ve dropped four pounds. Yesterday I was actually at my prepregnancy weight. Woohoo!

Now you’re getting there.

And I’m excited about PEP-C…not that the blog readers know about that, but we’ll get to that in a few days…

And I’ve been making progress on my novel, and there was that promising email from Liguori.

And I had good lessons yesterday.

And I love those pictures of Nicholas…yawn…from the…front yard…

Zzzzzz…..

Published in: on September 30, 2009 at 5:36 am  Comments (8)  
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In the Moonlight

Moonlight has a color all its own. We call it silver, white, blue, yellow…but none of those quite capture the essence of what we see.

There’s nothing quite like the light of a full moon. All the words used in literature—ghostly, mysterious, pale, tricksy—come to mind when I look out over my back yard at the long shadows cast by the sycamores reaching out toward our house, surrounded by moon glow. It’s no wonder that moonlight is a literary device for romance, for murder, for things hidden and things revealed. There’s something about it that shakes us out of our usual habits and attitudes.

I was up a good portion of the night. Nicholas has finally succumbed to his siblings’ wet, sloppy, germ-laden love, and has developed a stuffy nose. So of course he couldn’t sleep. On another night, I would gnash my teeth at having to nurse and still have to pat him back to sleep; I would be impatient when he decided nothing else would do but sleeping with his cheek pressed up against my arm.

But last night, the moonlight transformed all things into beauty. No doubt the weather helped. Snuggling is so much more bewitching on a chilly fall night than on a sweltering summer one. The third time I got up, the moon had set, and all was darkness outside. I brought my baby back to my bed and cuddled around him. It took him a long time to go back to sleep; he wanted to play handsies and squeeze my arm and cheek. So I never slept again. But his little microfiber romper and his fine hair and his silky cheek were a symphony for the sense of touch, his breathing a song in my ears.

I’ll be paying for this later today, I’m sure, but at least in the early morning, it all seems worthwhile.

Published in: on September 3, 2009 at 5:38 am  Comments (1)  
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Grandma, you rock!

Every afternoon, while I’m putting the kids in bed, my brain works furiously so that when I get downstairs, I’m ready to dive right into writing. Often, prolactin kicks in while nursing, and I think longingly of the comfy couch. But I always grit my teeth and push through my sleepiness, knowing that nap time is the only writing time I have some days.

But then I’m always exhausted. And Christian and I argued all weekend, a byproduct of my inability to rest. Then, on Sunday evening, I received an email from my grandmother.

I want to introduce Grandma, but there is no way to do her justice without a blog post all her own. Suffice it to say, Grandma raised ten kids, and now she takes care of grown grandchildren and small great-grandchildren when we come to visit. She is an amazing, holy woman and one of the people I aspire to be when I grow up.

Her email said:

Kate I have taken time tonight to read much of your blog. You comment on lacking in rest. Let the Mother of ten give some advice for what it is worth. I think you have comparable activity with all of your extra activities on top of your parenting. My Mother in law gave me this advice which I implemented successfully during my very busy days. She said her doctor told her that if every Mother would take fifteen minutes out of her day, throw herself onto the bed, put everything ( I mean everything) out of her mind, and reap a 5 minute nap, there would be less nervous breakdowns.

I know it took some practice because I would think of all I had to do ( no time for a nap). I would say a Hail Mary telling the Blessed Mother that I just had to have 5 min. sleep. Finally it worked and I would wake up refreshed and raring to go while the babies slept and the older ones sat quietly with their story books. Good luck if you try it.

Remember you need to do it when things are quiet (children either napping or sitting quietly with books) not to bother Mother while she is napping. Mother must learn to put ALL out of her mind for 15 min, with a prayer to let her have at least a 5 min. snooze. Phone calls I can’t advise on. I have never had to contend with many calls. Love, Grandma

Actually, she has offered this advice before, but I never gave it a fair try. I always think I have too much to do. But my brain is muddled and slow when I’m sleepy, and pushing through it is a recipe for frustration. So today, when my brain and prolactin went to war, I decided what I wanted to work on and then quit thinking about it. After putting Nicholas down, I set the timer for fifteen minutes and lay down on the couch.

I woke up two minutes before the timer went off, ready to work. Grandma, you rock!

Published in: on September 2, 2009 at 5:33 am  Comments (2)  
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Paradox

At 12:30 a.m., I turned off my alarm and added the loss of exercise to the list of things to be grouchy about. I retreated to the couch, wallowing in self-pity, only to be called back upstairs twice by Nicholas, who wanted to lie on the Boppy and cuddle at the breast. (Notice I didn’t say eat.)

When Alex woke up scared just before five, I bowed to the inevitable, called the night done and got up to run. (I really do want to lose those last six pounds.) The odd thing is that often, running is easier when I’m woefully un-rested. The nerves that tell me “this hurts, I’m too tired” are dulled and nonfunctional. This was one of those mornings.

And despite dreading the long day ahead, I could not help but be stirred by the sight of a crystal-clear sky turning to rainbow sherbet in the east, of a little charcoal-gray kitten bounding away on four white boots…by the whisper of a dozen pairs of wings passing a few feet over my head in otherwise unbroken silence.

Once, my sisters-in-law admired me for how I could keep my cool with a screaming child. Not so much now. I feel like Kim Basinger in I Dreamed of Africa. One scene, she is shrieking like a maniac about how awful this place is, and then you skip to the next scene, which begins with her staring across a landscape with a beatific smile on her face. It drove us crazy. I understand having mixed emotions about things, but this was ridiculous. And yet now, I think that’s me—at least, when I blog!

Published in: on August 30, 2009 at 6:12 am  Comments (3)  

Heart To Heart

To Nicholas

The connection between us stretches back to the moment you finished your journey through a dark tunnel and tucked yourself into a corner of my womb. Before I knew you existed—so tiny that you were scarcely there—you were already attached to me…a physical bond whose days were numbered, prefiguring an emotional bond that will live beyond the grave.

My body nourished yours. The noise of my blood pumping was the first sound you heard; my heartbeat was your first lesson in rhythm. It lulled you to sleep, accompanied you as you danced within me…a sensation both wonderful and at times uncomfortable.

The trauma of birth severed that physical connection. Other, more distant, bonds replaced it. Smell. Taste. Sight. Touch. And yet we cling to the memory of a time when I was your whole universe. We lie together, heart to heart, and the twin beating calms us. At three months, the pulse of my body still lulls you to sleep.

I don’t know how long it will last. Physical bonds become less potent the older we grow. But here in this moment, my beautiful boy, life is perfect.

Heart to heart

Heart to heart

Published in: on June 19, 2009 at 1:13 pm  Comments (2)  
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Precious Moments at three days and counting

I used to think “white night” meant that you just couldn’t get to sleep. But I’m starting to redefine it. Last night, my eyes wouldn’t stay open, my brain was a dizzy vortex of sleepiness, but I couldn’t quite slip over the edge into oblivion. It’s the third time in two weeks. I sincerely hope it’s pregnancy-related, and not something I’m going to be dealing with long-term.

 

Of course, last night the coughing began—the kind of coughing that reminds me of Julianna’s X rays two years ago today, when she was in the PICU with RSV. The X rays in which her lungs were coated with gunk she couldn’t cough up. That’s how I felt last night. So I took some guafinisen. If I wasn’t having major abdominal surgery in three days, I’d just put up with the coughing; I hate that stuff. But the idea of having to cough while they’re cutting…and the idea of having to cough in the days following…prompted me to overcome my revulsion.

 

However, guafinisen is a “non-drowsy” medication, which is code for “keep you awake.” After a while I went and took a Benadryl to try to help me go to sleep, but it didn’t work. I went down to the couch. No luck. Then Julianna started crying. I went back upstairs and found her lying head-first off the mattress. She started signing “water” furiously while I was rearranging her. Weaving drunkenly through my exhaustion-and-Benadryl-induced stupor, I got a glass of water for her and went back to bed. And then, finally, I slipped off the edge of consciousness into a crazy vivid dream that I can no longer remember.

 

The odd thing about these nights is that even though I’ve only had a couple hours of sleep, I’m not that tired the next day. I mean, I’m exhausted, but functional. All I can figure is that hovering on the edge of wakefulness, while maddening, is probably closer to sleep than it feels.

 

Nonetheless, by the time we got home from swim lessons and a few errands this morning, I was queasy with weariness. I lay down on the couch for a catnap before lunch. Alex went and got the throw and covered me from head to toe. That’s fine, I thought. Use me as a toy, just don’t make me move. Or talk. Or think.

 

Eventually, he retreated to the basement, and Julianna moved in with her plush lamb pull toy that plays “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” She stood beside my face grunting until I started the music. This went on for five or six pulls until I realized that she was grunting and whining even while the music was going. Blearily I opened my eyes and said, “You want to come up here?” She raised her arms.

 

I pulled her up against me and spooned her, expecting the usual ten seconds of cuddly bliss before Julianna decides she’s had enough and takes off. Instead, I woke up twenty minutes later to find her still lying contentedly against my chest, her hands idly playing with Lambie Pie, or her hair, or the air. Not sleeping, just snuggling with Mommy. I took her plump little hand and munched and kissed it; I stroked her soft little tummy; I nuzzled her fine hair and warm cheek, and thoroughly gloried in the moment.

 

I have no idea what possessed my decidedly un-cuddly, non-Mommy’s-girl little girl to want to snuggle with me this morning. But I choose to thank God for the gift, and consider it Julianna’s pre-baby gift to me, in these last days when she really still is my baby.

Published in: on March 16, 2009 at 1:25 pm  Leave a Comment  
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The Best Part of the Day

The best parts of the day are associated with bedtime.

 

I’ve heard people say that before, and found it incredibly irritating. I always thought, “If you didn’t want to be bothered with your kids, why’d you have them?”

 

Now, though, I think I rushed to judgment. It’s not just about having time for myself—though that’s definitely icing on the cake. No, naptime and bedtime are the best parts of the day for much better reasons.

 

It’s Julianna’s big, happy smile when she sees her bed. It’s reading books to the kids together. It’s Julianna’s tongue-out giggle, and Alex’s chirrupy, melodic one, when I read The Monster at the end of this Book in my silly Grover voice. It’s listening to Alex read to his sister—Brown Bear, The Bear Snores On, Ten Little Fingers—­and laughing when she decides he’s better as an object for hugs and kisses than he is as a reader. It’s the way she bounces when she knows it’s time to “make them all hide,” and the way Alex wriggles with excitement at his “walking in the woods” story. It’s “Mommy, eat us all gone!” and little girl hugs and little boy kisses and the feel of warm, silky skin.

 

Sleepy time is reset time. It’s the part of the day when (usually) all the angst and rancor of power struggles gets checked at the door, and what’s left is cuddles and hugs and love. And quiet…don’t forget quiet! Sometimes we have to cool down into quiet. As I said in my last post, bedtime is very physical, what with toileting and tooth brushing and diaper changing…not to mention wrestling. But we always diminuendo into quiet in the end.

 

Any time Christian wakes up in the night, he has to go check on them. (I’ve never felt the same compulsion, probably because I spend so many nights staggering into their rooms half asleep—to nurse, or drive the boogeyman away, or whatever.) When Alex was a baby, Christian had to reassure himself that he was still breathing. But these days, the mid-night check has more to do with watching the kids sleep. Angelic, peaceful…usually. Once in a while I get paged to “come see how your daughter’s sleeping!” Lately Julianna’s taken to conking out with the baby clutched on her chest. The baby’s at least half as big as she is; she can barely get her arms around it, yet she’s holding onto it deep into the night. So cute. And then there was this gem from Alex, probably two years ago already:

April 2007 (Alex, age 2)

April 2007 (Alex, age 2)

Waking up time is wonderful, too. Soft cheeks warmed by the pillow, chubby arms toasty from resting beneath the covers…ooh, so much to munch on! But even so, waking up is done gently in our house. Not like my mother, who I firmly believe took evil pleasure in tiptoeing into our rooms and yanking up the blackout shades in unison with a deafening chorus of “ROLL OUT THE BARRELS!”

 

At all other times of the day, I’m caught in a tug of war between housework and kids, teaching and fun, “me” time and play. But bedtime is sacred. The rush of tenderness surprises me at unpredictable moments, but never so consistently as at bedtime. There’s something so fragile and holy about children. At other times I may get distracted by the distinctly un-holy behaviors I’m trying to correct, but at bedtime I see my children’s true nature most clearly. Bedtime marks the passage of one day to the next, and of morning to afternoon, with a small taste of what God surely must feel for all his beautiful, holy, fragile, and wayward children.

Published in: on March 3, 2009 at 2:28 pm  Leave a Comment  
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