Mostly sleep wars.
Sep. 20th, 2012 12:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseHmm. A month and a half. Yeah. It seems like it, too.
Right now not much outside the ordinary comes to mind as having happened in August. We went to the waterslides, I know that much. We decided to try Thunder Mountain, up by Grand Beach. Consensus was, the slides were fine, but not worth the extra drive compared to Fun Mountain, and since there only provision for smaller children were three bitty slides, and nothing else (And a hot tub that was big, and fun, and actually only warm so I wasn't concerned with bouncing him around in it), it wasn't really worth taking JoJo, regardless of how much fun he finds water. He did get to go down one of the slides a few times, on Iulianna's lap on the way down, with me at the bottom to grab him if needed. (Other moms were sliding with slightly older toddlers - but I'm, ah, not small, and Iulianna is.) Amusing, but next time we take the shorter drive. of course, next time will be next summer when he might be slightly more able to handle the slides. JoJo is, incidentally, set to do swim classes starting early October.
September event went well enough. We were only there a day and a half, but it was a lot of fun. Joseph was popular, even in close competition with Katie, a baby about six weeks his elder, who was more familiar to many there (His mother has made it out to WAY more SCA things than I have), and walking, and frankly, quite thoroughly cute. I got to shoot some; not as much as usual, but enough. I got to visit the beach with Joseph, and let him explore the sand and dip his toes in the edge of the lake. In fact, i should probably have been down there longer - but the Saturday, it was windy, spitty-rainy, and the waves were high and the weather not worth it, so while he got to look at the water, that was all. Sunday at least it was warm and the wind was calmer. Feast was excellent, there were all kinds of good things happening I haven't mentioned. Iulianna gave me a henna dragonfly and bee this year.
My one gripe is the big shoot that has been standard for the last few years. We used to use milk cartons filled with water (On a pulley system) as the targets. But A) this requires being able to collect a lot of 2 litre milk cartons, and B) they don't exactly look medieval. This is the second year they tried a solution involving canvas targets in the vague shape of a person (Sort of like a gingerbread man), with a big plastic bag of water inside. The problems with the new method are, A) Most of the arrows stick in, where before most went through, which means every time one hits, one has fewer arrows to shoot the next round, B) the plastic bags flex and therefore seal up around the arrow, slowing the leak, and C) the extra weight of the canvas, especially being wetted as it empties, slows the pulley movement even more. With milk cartons, even with an arrow left in, the flow was fairly quick, and while it *could* take a round or even two before the water drained around the arrow enough to tip the balance on the pulley, that was the exception, not the rule. It's become the rule, which slows down the contest, which leads to a lot of boredom and frustration.
I'm hoping they can solve the problems in some way, even if that way is going back to milk cartons as the basis (maybe putting the cartons into a canvas holder to disguise their nature a bit?)
Anyhow, it went well.
September since then has been all about the Sleep war.
We have two problems with Joseph's sleeping habits. The first is that he tends to sleep late. 11:00 is a good bed time for him (I'd prefer 10:00). It's been as late as 1:30 or 2:00 AM. I'd noticed that as well as obvious things like naps too late in the evening, the late ones often correlate with the days he doesn't have a bath, or times when routine is less routine.
The other issue is that he went back to waking up 5-6 times in a 10 hour sleep stretch. Which means, yes, that there was almost never a length of sleep over 2 hours.
I'll say up front before the rest of the blather that other moms sharing what worked for them would be VERY welcome.
Katie's mother, Amaryllis, suggested a book to me that she found was highly successful in teaching Katie to sleep. I thought I'd take a look.
Turns out, that's Ferber's book.
Those not tuned in to the Mom thing probably don't know the name, so here's the gist: Dr. Ferber, Dr. Estivill, and their group, advocate variations on a system called Cry-it-out (CIO), in which you leave the baby to cry in the crib and teach itself to sleep without depending on you. It's not total abandonment; there's a pre-sleep ritual to show affection and get them used to the routine, and the parent is supposed to come in every few minutes and reassure the baby they love them and haven't abandoned them, but not pick them up and not cuddle or touch them (except to do things like clean away vomit if they're the sort of baby that throws up while tantrumming). The idea is to discourage the bad behaviour by refusing to acknowledge it or give in to it.
It's a method I'm... torn about.
On the one hand, I see where sometimes Joseph gets annoyed with me not because I'm not showing him love, or cuddling him, or being gentle, but because I'm not doing the exact thing he wants me to do. Or letting him do whatever he wants to do. Or when he keeps on misbehaving - and I do mean wilfully, not just too young to learn - when I've made what I want him to do clear.
On the other ... I can see very easily why the method as outlined is often considered very cold and cruel by its critics. I'm doubtful that completely detaching the parent from the sleep is the same thing as teaching the baby to sleep without waking every 2 hours. I know I was wholeheartedly against it a few months ago, and even now, I'd say I wouldn't consider it at all with Joseph as he was at 4 months old, or six months. I can't say where the break point is, but at 10 months, I'm seeing signs that Joseph is getting old enough that if I DID try it, he might get what I'm doing without being confused into thinking I'm not there for him or loving.
But I'd also have a really hard time not cuddling him a bit. But one other thing CIO is firm about is that if you soften the routine, it's not going to work.
I ordered two sleep-related books from Amazon (One on CIO, one on some of the alternate methods), but for Reasons, they were going to be a few weeks. While waiting for them to show, I've already tried to make some changes to routine to get him to sleep longer at night (focusing on this also meant letting the late hours slide a bit). Small changes that my pediatrician approved (He seems Not inclined to CIO, but also inclined to being firm and to not nursing.) Among other things, they're changes that will guarantee I don't end up with an inadvertent co-sleeping in the middle of the night. (The ONLY times I've allowed him to cuddle next to me for a nap the last 3 weeks have been daytime naps.)
It's had results, both positive and negative. Sometimes he does sleep more hours, and wake fewer times. And after the first few "mom's not doing the usual..." tries, it seemed at first like it often meant he'd go back to sleep quicker. Then something switched again, and now sometimes, when he wakes, he's awake, upset, and crying, for over an hour. Twice during those super long stretches, I've somewhat inadvertently done a bit of the CIO method, simply because I had to get out of the room to clear my head a few times, and he's fallen asleep at last while I was away. (Also one of the places where I could clearly see him understanding what I wanted him to do, and not being satisfied with simple mom cuddles, because it wasn't exactly what he wanted).
I'd already decided it was time to regroup and rethink. The changes aren't consistent enough.
Anyhow, now I have the books. My reading for the next few days. Which will probably result in another set of changes. Which ones, we'll see.
Right now not much outside the ordinary comes to mind as having happened in August. We went to the waterslides, I know that much. We decided to try Thunder Mountain, up by Grand Beach. Consensus was, the slides were fine, but not worth the extra drive compared to Fun Mountain, and since there only provision for smaller children were three bitty slides, and nothing else (And a hot tub that was big, and fun, and actually only warm so I wasn't concerned with bouncing him around in it), it wasn't really worth taking JoJo, regardless of how much fun he finds water. He did get to go down one of the slides a few times, on Iulianna's lap on the way down, with me at the bottom to grab him if needed. (Other moms were sliding with slightly older toddlers - but I'm, ah, not small, and Iulianna is.) Amusing, but next time we take the shorter drive. of course, next time will be next summer when he might be slightly more able to handle the slides. JoJo is, incidentally, set to do swim classes starting early October.
September event went well enough. We were only there a day and a half, but it was a lot of fun. Joseph was popular, even in close competition with Katie, a baby about six weeks his elder, who was more familiar to many there (His mother has made it out to WAY more SCA things than I have), and walking, and frankly, quite thoroughly cute. I got to shoot some; not as much as usual, but enough. I got to visit the beach with Joseph, and let him explore the sand and dip his toes in the edge of the lake. In fact, i should probably have been down there longer - but the Saturday, it was windy, spitty-rainy, and the waves were high and the weather not worth it, so while he got to look at the water, that was all. Sunday at least it was warm and the wind was calmer. Feast was excellent, there were all kinds of good things happening I haven't mentioned. Iulianna gave me a henna dragonfly and bee this year.
My one gripe is the big shoot that has been standard for the last few years. We used to use milk cartons filled with water (On a pulley system) as the targets. But A) this requires being able to collect a lot of 2 litre milk cartons, and B) they don't exactly look medieval. This is the second year they tried a solution involving canvas targets in the vague shape of a person (Sort of like a gingerbread man), with a big plastic bag of water inside. The problems with the new method are, A) Most of the arrows stick in, where before most went through, which means every time one hits, one has fewer arrows to shoot the next round, B) the plastic bags flex and therefore seal up around the arrow, slowing the leak, and C) the extra weight of the canvas, especially being wetted as it empties, slows the pulley movement even more. With milk cartons, even with an arrow left in, the flow was fairly quick, and while it *could* take a round or even two before the water drained around the arrow enough to tip the balance on the pulley, that was the exception, not the rule. It's become the rule, which slows down the contest, which leads to a lot of boredom and frustration.
I'm hoping they can solve the problems in some way, even if that way is going back to milk cartons as the basis (maybe putting the cartons into a canvas holder to disguise their nature a bit?)
Anyhow, it went well.
September since then has been all about the Sleep war.
We have two problems with Joseph's sleeping habits. The first is that he tends to sleep late. 11:00 is a good bed time for him (I'd prefer 10:00). It's been as late as 1:30 or 2:00 AM. I'd noticed that as well as obvious things like naps too late in the evening, the late ones often correlate with the days he doesn't have a bath, or times when routine is less routine.
The other issue is that he went back to waking up 5-6 times in a 10 hour sleep stretch. Which means, yes, that there was almost never a length of sleep over 2 hours.
I'll say up front before the rest of the blather that other moms sharing what worked for them would be VERY welcome.
Katie's mother, Amaryllis, suggested a book to me that she found was highly successful in teaching Katie to sleep. I thought I'd take a look.
Turns out, that's Ferber's book.
Those not tuned in to the Mom thing probably don't know the name, so here's the gist: Dr. Ferber, Dr. Estivill, and their group, advocate variations on a system called Cry-it-out (CIO), in which you leave the baby to cry in the crib and teach itself to sleep without depending on you. It's not total abandonment; there's a pre-sleep ritual to show affection and get them used to the routine, and the parent is supposed to come in every few minutes and reassure the baby they love them and haven't abandoned them, but not pick them up and not cuddle or touch them (except to do things like clean away vomit if they're the sort of baby that throws up while tantrumming). The idea is to discourage the bad behaviour by refusing to acknowledge it or give in to it.
It's a method I'm... torn about.
On the one hand, I see where sometimes Joseph gets annoyed with me not because I'm not showing him love, or cuddling him, or being gentle, but because I'm not doing the exact thing he wants me to do. Or letting him do whatever he wants to do. Or when he keeps on misbehaving - and I do mean wilfully, not just too young to learn - when I've made what I want him to do clear.
On the other ... I can see very easily why the method as outlined is often considered very cold and cruel by its critics. I'm doubtful that completely detaching the parent from the sleep is the same thing as teaching the baby to sleep without waking every 2 hours. I know I was wholeheartedly against it a few months ago, and even now, I'd say I wouldn't consider it at all with Joseph as he was at 4 months old, or six months. I can't say where the break point is, but at 10 months, I'm seeing signs that Joseph is getting old enough that if I DID try it, he might get what I'm doing without being confused into thinking I'm not there for him or loving.
But I'd also have a really hard time not cuddling him a bit. But one other thing CIO is firm about is that if you soften the routine, it's not going to work.
I ordered two sleep-related books from Amazon (One on CIO, one on some of the alternate methods), but for Reasons, they were going to be a few weeks. While waiting for them to show, I've already tried to make some changes to routine to get him to sleep longer at night (focusing on this also meant letting the late hours slide a bit). Small changes that my pediatrician approved (He seems Not inclined to CIO, but also inclined to being firm and to not nursing.) Among other things, they're changes that will guarantee I don't end up with an inadvertent co-sleeping in the middle of the night. (The ONLY times I've allowed him to cuddle next to me for a nap the last 3 weeks have been daytime naps.)
It's had results, both positive and negative. Sometimes he does sleep more hours, and wake fewer times. And after the first few "mom's not doing the usual..." tries, it seemed at first like it often meant he'd go back to sleep quicker. Then something switched again, and now sometimes, when he wakes, he's awake, upset, and crying, for over an hour. Twice during those super long stretches, I've somewhat inadvertently done a bit of the CIO method, simply because I had to get out of the room to clear my head a few times, and he's fallen asleep at last while I was away. (Also one of the places where I could clearly see him understanding what I wanted him to do, and not being satisfied with simple mom cuddles, because it wasn't exactly what he wanted).
I'd already decided it was time to regroup and rethink. The changes aren't consistent enough.
Anyhow, now I have the books. My reading for the next few days. Which will probably result in another set of changes. Which ones, we'll see.
