My Babies, They Sleep

I write this now at 6:15am. Liam just nursed for a bit and drifted back off to sleep. He'll probably sleep until 8am, when I'll wake him for the day. Quinn woke up earlier to use the toilet and then went back to bed. He'll probably sleep until 7am when his music comes on. Liam went to bed last night around 7pm and Quinn 7:30. It wasn't always like this. After many many weeks of Liam not sleeping through the night, Quinn getting out of bed over and over again at night, Quinn waking up too early in the morning to pee, and Mike and I close to losing all sanity we took charge of the situation.
We started with Quinn. A set of rules are taped on his door.
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Quinn's Naptime Rules
1. Quinn will go potty.
2. Mommy, or Daddy, or Grandma Edie will tuck Quinn in.
3. Quinn will stay in bed and go to sleep.
If Quinn stays in bed and goes to sleep he gets a sticker and a popcycle.
If Quinn gets out of bed No sticker and No popcycle.
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Quinn's Bedtime Rules
1. Quinn will go potty.
2. Mommy or Daddy will tuck Quinn in.
3. Quinn will stay in bed and go to sleep until morning.
If Quinn stays in bed and goes to sleep he gets a sticker to add to his square.
If Quinn gets out of bed No sticker and No orange juice.
4. Quinn can go potty 1 time in the early morning.
5. Quinn will get back in bed and go to sleep.
6. Quinn will wait by himself for his music to come on.
If Quinn waits by himself for his music he gets another sticker to add to his square.
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He reads these himself before naptime and bedtime. And they are wonderful. In the morning all I have to say is, "the rules say Quinn will get back in bed" and he does. There are times when he doesn't follow the rules, but then he doesn't get the reward. He has a large square made up of mini-squares that he tries to fill up with stickers. Each time he fills a square he gets a Special! Surprise! Sometimes it's a trip to Dunkin Donuts, sometimes it's a new book, or Potato Head parts...
Since we've started these rules bedtime and naptime has become much easier and less stressful for both us and Quinn.


And then we worked on Liam. Oh, my little Liam. Even though we "sleep trained" Quinn using the methods suggested by Dr. Weissbluth I didn't enjoy the process with Quinn so I did some more reading while pregnant to try to avoid that situation. If you've never read Weissbluth's book I do recommend reading it - he does a great job of explaining how much babies need to sleep and how often they should be sleeping. Unfortunately, he also makes it seem as thought it's Your Fault if your baby cannot fall alseep by himself. What I took away from that book is that we held Quinn too much while he was sleeping and never gave him the chance to fall asleep on his own when he was a newborn. So, when he turned 4 months old he refused to be put down and would wake up from a nice deep sleep and scream. Which resulted in us holding him and walking with him some more. It made sense that it was our fault - we always held him, our first born. To prevent that with Liam I read The No Cry Sleep Solution. If you've ever let your baby cry themselves to sleep and want to feel oh so guilty about it I highly recommend this book. The author seems to be on a high horse and really lays it on thick with how horrible it is to let your baby cry. Nice. But, I was looking for suggestions that didn't require letting this new baby cry so I read on. Her and Weissbluth agreed on many aspects of baby sleep - the importance and the frequency. Also, she suggested (like Weisbluth) that you put your baby down when he's drowsy but awake and allow him to fall asleep on his own. And so once little Liam was born I tried that. Many times. As often as I could. And he didn't go for it at all. He required to be completely asleep before being put down and my instincts told me to just hold him. So I did. As he got older I would try other methods from the No Cry book - and they didn't seem to work so I went back to just holding him or nursing him to sleep. And then 5 months came along and he still wasn't sleeping for more than 4 hours at night and I knew we had to do something. I was losing it, barely able to hold it together. So we "sleep trained" Liam. It was even harder with Liam for a number of reasons - I've read more of the opposite view, Liam's probably my last baby, he had so many issues his first two months, and well, he has a very strong personality which means it took a few more nights. Even now, over a month later, he still wakes up once in awhile in the middle of the night and will cry for 5 minutes or so. I really didn't want to have to let him cry it out - but I didn't seem to have a choice. After months of close to no sleep the option of going in and comforting without feeding just wouldn't work for us. Maybe it works for those super-moms who seem to be able to handle everything, but not for us. And so now my baby sleeps. 6:30 until at least 5am and then some more 'til 8am. And I live with the guilt of spending a total of 10 nights listening to one or another of my babies cry.