The Sleep Chart

I've been hesitant to write about this.  It's like when you hit every green light on the way home.  You don't talk about it.  You just let it happen and celebrate when you pull in your driveway.  It's why Clif doesn't let me comment on the surprising lack of traffic.  The minute you talk about it, everything goes to...you know what.

However, I have always said that if I ever got Ainsley to sleep like a normal kid I would write a book and make millions.  Well, I can barely find time to write this blog, so I don't think a book deal is showing up anytime soon.

Ainsley is the anti-sleeper.  If you have read this blog at all, you already know that.  She is the perfect storm for sleep deprived parents...

1 - She hates being left out.  She would rather force her eyes open and watch me fold clothes than just get the sleep she so desperately needs.

2 - She can not self soothe.  She has never attached herself to a bottle, a thumb, a finger, a blanket, a baby doll, a stuffed animal, an article of my clothing.  The only thing that has ever made her secure is another person to cling to.

3 - She can not put herself to sleep.  Anytime I have tried to instill this in her, it has ended in disaster.  Imagine, if you will, a very tired, very frustrated, at her wits end mother, reversing the door knob on her 3 year old's bedroom door so said 3 year old can't leave the room.  I know, not my proudest moment.  But I have been driven over the cliff with this child and her sleep issues.

I was really at peace with the situation.  This was our issue.  Ainsley is the perfect child otherwise.  Why should I complain that she wants to snuggle with me at night?  It wouldn't last forever.  But then it hit me.  I was really doing this girl a disservice. 

It happened about 6 weeks ago.  We were over at some friends.  There were a bunch of kids all around Ainsley's age.  Clif was staying to hang out while I took the kids home.  He would spend the night.  Some other dads were staying over with their kids.  A sleep over!  Ainsley wanted to stay.  How could I let her stay?  Could I really expect the mom - who had her own three kids to put to bed - to sleep with my daughter?  Clif was staying to catch up with some visiting friends.  Our deal was that I would take the kids home at a reasonable hour.  I couldn't ask him to change his plans to sleep on the floor, in a sleeping bag with Ainsley.

She cried the whole way home.  And I thought...this is my fault.  If I had taught her to do this, then I could have left her.  Clif was there, I could have left her to go to sleep with her little friends and have her first sleep over.

And what happens in a couple of years when little girls at school are having sleep overs?  Will she still need a mommy to sleep with her?  The thought of her missing out on things like that because I hadn't been able to figure this out, killed me.  I couldn't let it happen.  So it started...the sleep chart...

The deal was that if she could go to sleep on her own for a certain number of nights she would get a reward.  Three nights = Slurpee.  Five nights = Target shopping.  Seven nights = Build A Bear.  Ten nights = Movies.

I took the picture about a month ago.  It took over a week to get through the first 3 nights.  We just finished the 10 night stretch.  She's doing really well.  I can't believe that I can walk out of her room and have her fall asleep. She still whines every night that I leave, but she does it.  I think the whining is more for show.  We still have our bumps...like when she screams and cries for an hour straight, or when I head to bed at 11 and she's still awake.  But for the most part, I feel like we've got a good thing going.  For the first time in years, Clif and I can actually follow a grown up show like The Walking Dead*.  We can read books.  We can get laundry done before midnight. 

But most of all, I feel like we've given Ainsley something important.  I always thought that letting her sleep with me was fine.  That it made her feel safe and that was the most important thing.  I want her to feel safe, that is extremely important...but more, I want her to feel confident, I want her to feel fear and conquer it, I want her to problem solve, I want her to rely on herself.  She's only 4 and I expect her to rely on me and Clif for awhile...but hopefully we're getting her on the right foot.

*Holy Hell!!!  Does anyone watch this show?  All I think about is zombies.  Last night I dreamed that I met Jennifer Lopez (random in itself) and she was a zombie!  Crazy stuff.

So Tired...

This is going to be short, because I'm pretty beat and I still have to make bottles before I go to bed. So just a quick update...good news, Ainsley is sleeping in her crib right now and she has only awoken once since 8:30. So far, so good. As of right now she's been in there for an hour asleep, I'm going to stop talking about it now so I don't jinx us! Oh my gosh, you're not going to believe this but she just started crying!!! I knew I shouldn't have written about it! Oh well, still an improvement over previous nights. Clif is on crib duty for a few nights, I've been putting a lot of time into the class. I actually think she responds better to him in that department. I think most things get more complicated with me because I'm nursing and she uses it as a comfort so that's what she always wants to do.

Another update, Ainsley started eating real food at daycare this week. That is exciting mostly because she is starting to cut out some of her bottles. I still pump ever day at work, twice a day, and my milk supply is just really dropping. Especially since she started eating table food. I am bound and determined to make it a year breastfeeding with no formula, so her cutting back is a good thing. Hopefully, soon it will just be morning and night and NO MORE PUMPING!!! YES!!! I love nursing...HATE pumping.

Ok, like I said, I'm so tired. So I'm done for now, off to bottle making then bed. Take care all my loved ones. I hope I get to see you all in person soon, not just in cyberspace. XOXOXOXO

One GIANT Step...

Yes folks, she has taken her first steps!! It is unbelievable the thrill you can get from watching a baby take her first steps. I wish that I could of captured the look of excitement and pride on her chubby little face in that split second that she stumbled towards me. It was a thing of absolute beauty. Let me tell you just how it happened. It was a beautiful day when we got home from daycare and work so I decided to walk Ainsley down to the mailbox. Usually Clif gets the mail, but any excuse to be outside on a day like today. So, I took her hands and walked backwards and kind of pulled her towards me. When I got to the curb, I let go of her hands and voila, one foot came up and she lunged forward. I know that you are all saying "Jaime, that's not really walking, that's more like falling." Whatever, I was still excited...but what was more exciting was when she took 2-3 little shuffles 10 minutes later on the deck while Clif was watching. I was all excited about the one step, fall routine so I instructed Clif to watch and stood her up on the deck, backed up then said "Come to mommy Ainsley." And she did! She picked up her little left foot, stomped it twice, then step, step, fall. So she has officially walked...I don't think she'll be following me around the grocery store or running laps with Gatsby in the back yard anytime soon, but it's a start. We tried to get it on video camera, but she wasn't really interested in doing it again, so we have a couple of the step, falls which after I look at, I may post. Hopefully we'll get some good footage of her walking this weekend and I'll post it on here for all to be as proud as me.

In other happenings...Clif and I are desperately trying to get Ainsley to sleep better. About two months ago, she started refusing to sleep in her crib. She had a bad ear infection with fever, she was teething something awful and it was the time change weekend. I chalked it up to too many changes at once and figured she'd pull out of it. Until then, she was not a perfect sleeper by any means, but I could put her down around 8 pm and she'd sleep until 2 or 3 when she'd wake up to eat. Well, here we are two months later and still she's sleeping in our bed. It's not so much the sleeping in our bed that we mind, although we don't want her sleeping with us until she goes off to college. It's more that we miss the down time we used to have. We used to put her to bed at 8 and then we'd have a couple of hours to eat, talk, clean the house, whatever before we went to bed. Now it's all Ainsley all the time. So we decided that the next available weekend we had where we weren't travelling and we didn't have any visitors would be "Focus on Sleeping" weekend. We began the weekend tonight. HORRIBLE!!! I can not stress how miserable this evening was. I know that I am not the only parent to go through this, so I will not pretend that no one understands my pain...but seriously!!! Is that how it's supposed to work?

Let me start this little story by saying, I did not want to use the cry it out method. Not that I fault anyone for doing it, just my own personal feelings for our situation. I feel like her whole life I've tried to become someone she can trust and depend on. And I want her to know that I will always be around and I want to be the person she feels safe with, the person she can turn to for a soft place to land...ok I'm getting too emotional. Anyway, I feel like letting her cry it out is just reversing all of that. But she also needs to sleep and she needs to have a healthy relationship with sleep. So I talked to every mother who would listen. And I listened to every mother that would talk and pretty much everyone told me the same thing..."You've gotta let her cry. It won't be that bad. Three nights tops. An hour each night tops." Plus, I feel like I've exhausted all other options. I've rocked her until I've fallen asleep. I stand at her crib and shhhhh her until I'm almost hoarse. I put her to sleep in my bed then try to move her. None of this has worked. So tonight we tried the CIO method.

I started the bedtime routine with my own little prayer..."God, please help me be strong, but most of all help me do the right thing." I put her down...immediately the crying begins. I walk out of the room and I stare at the clock. 1 minute...screaming. 2 minutes...screaming louder and gagging. 3 minutes...even louder and oh, I think she just threw up. 4 minutes...no letting up. 5 minutes...back in the room to lay her down. She has definitely thrown up, but luckily it is just on the carpet and her chin. So I wipe her face and lay her back down. Still crying, still shaking. And we do it again. I'm not going to write this whole night out, because truth be told, I'm mad at myself for doing it. I'm mad at myself for going against my instincts and what I've thought all along. After getting to the 15 minute time block and hearing her gag and possibly throw up for a 4th time, I gave up. I said to myself "This is not right." But now I have to defend myself so everyone doesn't think I'm weak :)...she never once stopped screaming. She never once even laid down in her crib. She never once gave the slightest indication that she was letting up. So, I don't think the CIO method works for my daughter. We spent a total time of 40 minutes trying. No good.

However, here is the good news (at least so far). I picked her up, tears streaming down my face now, and I rocked her. And it took awhile, but right now as I type this, she is sleeping in her crib.
So here's what I've learned tonight. Follow my gut...and a screaming crying baby has way more patience than an unsure mom.