Sleep Crying and Rolling Over

Sleep training is progressing with some more bumps in the road. Apparently I slept through a few nightwakes last night, and Blue kindly took care of the little ones. Whoops. I feel bad. Solidarity in exhaustion, no?

A fun new development since we stopped swaddling the babies last week is that Indigo cries in his sleep. And it's not just a wah-wah cry. No, it sounds like someone is in there trying to kill him. He sounds SO upset, SO pained, and worst of all, SO scared. It breaks my heart to listen to it. An online friend I've dubbed the Sleep Guru told me not to wake Indigo during these times as then it will take forever for him to fall back asleep. Or he could freak out, like people who are sleepwalking tend to do when harshly woken up.

So I tried to just let him cry through it last night. I knew he wasn't hungry or wet, or at least that those things weren't what was bringing the crying on. I had no idea what WAS bringing the crying on, but it wasn't something I could fix. That's perhaps the most frustrating part of this, actually.

But after a minute or two of hearing my baby screaming like that, I had to pick him up. Horizontal didn't work, so up on my shoulder he went, still completely asleep. Phew. He calmed down, so I put him back in the crib. And the screaming started up again. Back up on my shoulder he went, and he came into our room for a few minutes. I reclined a bit to get him a bit more horizontal and he stayed calm. Finally his breathing slowed from that ragged, crying breathing we all get after a good crying jag. I put him back to bed and he stayed asleep and calm. Phew again!

Until 3 am, when it started up again. This time it took less time to get him calm and I never had to leave the nursery. Still broke my heart listening to that cry.

I've been told that babies do not dream until 18 months, so I know he's not having horrific nightmares. I've been told it might be a growth spurt, which might make sense given his recent jump from 6oz to 8oz bottles. And another person told me their child started doing it when they stopped swaddling him, which also could be a reason for Indigo, although by all other accounts he is doing well without it.

I'm also told these crying fits last about ten minutes, that as they get older they will wake more easily and I should definitely let him cry it out at that point, and that frequency diminishes over time. So we'll see what tonight brings...

The day before her first roll-over. So close!

In better news, Periwinkle rolled over for the first time yesterday, from front to back! She looked so surprised. I was ridiculously excited, mainly because we were both there to witness it and she saved it for us, not daycare (unless she did it there and they didn't tell us, which is fine. I'm okay living in ignorance). So, first roll-over on St. Patty's Day!

Almost a year to the day that we found out I was pregnant, which is kind of crazy. Where did the past year go? The Monday after St. Patty's Day last year I was so giddy at work I don't think I did a damned thing. I'm not terribly productive today either, but that's because this project isn't exactly inspiring...

Also, wish me luck at the allergist tonight. I'm hoping they can alleviate the sniffles, and thus the pain my nose is in, so that I don't want to chop it off anymore.

Little Things Thursdays, Week 7

A day late again. You can forgive me, right, knowing about the sleep training going on?

#1. No sleep struggles last night. They had baths at 7, ate at 7:30 (Indigo ate 6.5oz!), and were in bed at 8. Periwinkle was so sleepy she was asleep before her head hit the crib mattress. I sang them a song (more like croaked, given my cold) which I think they liked. This is going to be part of their new bedtime routine, which I am hoping helps with easy bedtimes. Indigo required one check but was asleep by 8:15! Amazing considering it took an hour to get him to sleep two nights ago. They slept until 2:15am, ate, resisted a little, but were asleep by 3am. She was awake at 6:10am when I was getting ready but Indigo was still out. I'm guessing they were both awake by 6:45am based on the fact that Blue was getting them ready by 7am (I stalked on the monitor -- handy having an app for my phone!). This means they got about nine hours of sleep. Not quite the eleven we want, but closer than eight. We will give it a few more days and if this is still their wake up time, we will try a dreamfeed at 10pm. If they have even a few ounces then it might push their middle of the night feeding to 4am, which then means they won't be hungry and awake at 6am, and we'll feel less guilty having them wait for their morning feeding until 8am at daycare. So all this boils down to, they slept, and we slept! It was great!

#2. That second crib wasn't a waste! We split them up last night. I think this is a part of why they slept better -- no feet in each others' faces! Kind of sad to see them sleeping apart, but I think it's better for them at this point. We'd have had to do it when they started rolling over, anyways. They are growing up!

Of course, this means we'll need to find a new place to set out the next day's outfits, store extra blankets, and hang up spit-up-upon bibs and burpcloths...

#3. The Woombie. You can see they are both in Woombies now. The Halo Swaddle Sleepsacks were great in newborn size, but Indigo managed to wriggle the wings up by his shoulders in the larger Small size, giving him way too much freedom with his arms. The Woombie is both more restrictive (keeps arms close to the body) and more intentionally freeing (allows them to move their arms, albeit slowly so as to not startle awake). I think this has definitely helped with their ability to fall asleep and stay asleep.

#4. Being remembered. I got coffee from the same coffee cart guy for about three years before realizing I could save hella money by using the Keurig machine at work and adding French Vanilla coffee creamer I bring from home. I ran out of creamer this week so I ended up buying from him again for the first time in at least a year. And he remembered me! "Where have you been, having babies?" was the first thing he says. So I tell him, actually, yeah. Kind of funny that's the first thing he thought of, and that he said "babies" not "a baby." Always nice to be remembered!

#5. Great Chinese food. When we lived in the city, we always got Chinese from this one place, China Fun. Their General Tso's Chicken was to die for. It was kind of an addiction. I work right near the place and somehow manage to not get it for lunch all the time. In fact, I hadn't had it for at least a year. I decided yesterday that enough was enough. I had it delivered to work in the afternoon and brought it home via subway, commuter rail, and my car. And it was delicious! So worth the hassle! And there's enough for leftovers for at least one more meal, if not two!

Sleep Training

For a while there, I didn't think we'd need to deal with sleep training. The kids seemed to go to bed just fine after a 10pm feeding (so around 11pm), wake up at 4:30am to eat, then sleep until woken up around 7:30am to go to daycare or hang out around the house if it's the weekend. Then two things happened.

1. I realized I wasn't getting to bed until nearly midnight because I'd be doing all my stuff after they went to bed, which made for Zombie Red once I went back to work. I get up at 6am to be at work by 8am. Figure six hours minus the 4:30am feeding equals about five hours of sleep. That's just not liveable for me.

Probably how I look these days.

2. I did a lot of reading and talking to other moms, and their kids were averaging about 11 hours of sleep at night. Ours were averaging about 8. This was likely creating a vicious cycle where they were then overtired the next day, napped erratically, got even more overtired, then didn't sleep as much at night, and so on. And napping does not have the same restorative features as nightsleep. Also, as the saying goes, "Sleep begets sleep." I.e., get your kids napping well and they will sleep better at night. And if they go to bed earlier at night, they will, quite ironically, go longer before waking up and sometimes will actually start sleeping through the night, because they are better rested and thus sleep more soundly.

So, our mission is two-pronged:

1. Get the kids napping more regularly. No more than two hours should pass between them waking and them going back into nap-land. I'm sure the daycare knows this, but judging from their recent naps, the babies are going too long in between naps during the day.

2. Work back their bedtime from 11pm to 8pm. If that works well, perhaps even try and move it to 7pm, which would probably be best for them. It would mean I would never see them, pretty much, until weekends, so that would be a bit rough on me.

So the plan:

I'm going to mention to daycare, as non-judgmentally as possible, that we really want to work on naptimes and wake times.  It also seems that Periwinkle has a tougher time transitioning between sleep cycles and they might be getting her up when she starts to cry about 45 minutes into her nap. Instead she might just need some patting and shushing to help her fall asleep again for another sleep cycle. I'm going to work on this on weekends before I bring it up at daycare. For now we'll have them work on keeping wake times to two hours or less.

As for the second part, it's worked out pretty well that the babies are now eating around 8:30am, 12:30pm, and 4:30pm. Which leads to a last feeding around 8:30pm and a middle-of-the-night feeding around 3am. Last night Periwinkle was out like a light at 9pm. Indigo had a harder time, but he was the one with the worst napping yesterday so I chalked it up to overtiredness. He did eventually fall asleep for good at 10:08pm after a few cycles of us going up to calm him, rock him, and give him his pacifier back. The last time he cried, I could tell it was different. He would cry somewhat half-heartedly for a few moments, then be quiet for perhaps 20 seconds, then cry again. After a few minutes of that he finally quieted for good and fell asleep. I'm hoping he'll get better at calming himself like he did that last time, and that if we just give him five minutes to cry and then self-soothe he'll put himself back to sleep. It is SO hard to listen to him cry, though, and even though I say we're waiting five minutes, we never make it that long. Luckily Periwinkle can sleep through his crying! This part of sleep training is a work in progress. We still need to push their bedtime another hour earlier but I will let them adjust to 9pm first. We'll get there, little by little.

Day 61 of Project365

Then of course last night Periwinkle was crying at 2:15am, and Indigo woke up around then too, which he rarely does. We tried in vain to get them back to sleep before caving at 3am and feeding them. They both then resisted going back to sleep, and it took about twenty minutes of us going in and calming them (they alternated whose turn it was to cry, which was somewhat helpful) to finally fall asleep again. It's pretty rare that they resist going back to sleep in the middle of the night, so I'm hoping that was just a fluke and not a new normal. I'm sure it has something to do with their new, earlier bedtime, so perhaps in a few days they'll have adjusted and will drift back to sleep like they used to. I ordered Indigo one of the Woombie things Periwinkle has been using this week because his size small swaddling sleep sack just doesn't keep his arms from flailing the way the newborn size did, which I think makes it harder for him to fall asleep. I'm hoping, anyways!

Another thing we might try is a dreamfeed before we go to bed. Essentially you get them to eat while they are still in their crib asleep. This might push the MOTN feeding from 3am to 5am or something like that. We'll see if we feel the need to do that though. Just another tool in our arsenal.

Unless you are a parent of an infant, this was all probably horrible boring for you. If you are my parents or in-laws, this might help you understand what we're now trying to do for next time you are babysitting! I promise I'm not crazy (although Blue probably thinks I am) and there is a lot of evidence behind this whole "early to bed means better sleeping, happier babies" thing.

Still Happy

So this tighter swaddling seems to be working! The first night they slept four hours before waking up with their hungry cries. I did have to change Indigo at the three hour mark, but then he went back to sleep.

Last night we went 4.5 hours between feedings! Again, I had to change Periwinkle around 3.5 hours but she went back to sleep easily. Last night I did try the Halo sleep sacks I just remembered we had, but Periwinkle was able to free her arms fairly quickly and started crying. Indigo made it to 5am, at which point we discovered he'd peed through his diaper and soaked the sleep sack, so into a Carter's blanket he went, as well. I'll still try the sleep sacks on him, mainly just to use them. I didn't have faith in our ability to swaddle with blankets when I registered for the sleep sacks, but really, we don't need them. Perhaps I can eBay them...

Not my child

And now they are both crying in their boppys, so off I go...

Happiest Babies on the Block?

Perhaps you've heard of this video, Happiest Baby on the Block? It claims to teach you the ways to calm your baby and get them to sleep longer via swaddling, shushing, putting them on their side, swinging them, etc. I was convinced it wouldn't do anything for us, as our babies sleep rather well and are generally not criers. If they are crying, changing their diaper or feeding them usually does the trick.

Well, tonight they were both ornery and whiny and generally unhappy. I decided to try the movie's more aggressive swaddling technique, even though our babies have, from day one, fought to keep their arms free. But I pinned their arms down and swaddled them tight, and now they are both lying quietly on their playmat, not struggling to get free, calm and content.

I am really hoping this translates into longer periods of sleep at night. Right now Indigo tends to wake up at the three-hour mark, and so we feed both of them even though Periwinkle is sound asleep. But perhaps with his arms by his side, he won't startle himself awake around the three-hour mark and will maybe make it to four hours? That would be glorious! We've also fed him 5oz instead of 4.5oz at the last two feedings, and he seems to be doing well with that amount. That should help him last longer between feedings, as well.

Here's hoping... I will update you on how they do tonight in my next post!