Sleepless in Osan

Alright, I think I got enough sleep last night that I finally have the mental presence to write this...

Years before we were ready to have kids, a great Christian friend urged us to pray very specifically over our child when the time came. Not just for a happy, healthy baby, but for specific traits that matter to us. (No harm in asking, right?) We put a lot of thought into our supplications as we were expecting Kaden - trying to cover every part of him in prayer. One of the things we asked for was a good eater, because I've watched many moms struggle to get their kids to eat enough healthy food. But somehow, we failed to ask for a good sleeper. That in combination with his voracious appetite has made my life a waking nightmare for the last couple months.

Kaden has always been an irregular napper, but at least for the first 3 months he slept soundly at night. I'd often have to go in and wake him up to eat at the appropriate intervals. We were tired, but overall we thought we'd left the sleepless nights behind.

Then, we went back to the States at the end of November, and suddenly our 8 hours of sleep a night were over. First he was jet lagged. Then he hit what they call the 4 month sleep regression. Then we decided to try and transition him into sleeping in his crib at night. Plus, I seemed to have an inability to provide all of the calories he needed during the day which forced him to wake up demanding food multiple times a night. All these factors, plus a host of bad habits we'd established early on formed a perfect storm of sleep challenges that we just couldn't cope with.

He refused to nap for more than 30-40 minutes at a time during the day, which was never long enough for me to nap. Then at night, he wouldn't go to bed till very late and would wake up every 2 hours after that, screaming inconsolably till I fed him. That meant that neither of us were getting nearly as much sleep as we needed. (Babies his age are supposed to get 12-14 hours of sleep a day and he was MAYBE getting 8). I was also forced to give him a full feeding at least 10 times a day, which my body just couldn't handle. I thought maybe he would eventually get over it - but after weeks with no improvement, I was desperate for help.

I took him to the doctor to ask her if she thought he really needed to be eating that much at night, or if it was more a behavioral problem. She said that his growth is still slowing down and that he does seem to need more calories during the day. However, she didn't think he needed to be getting them at night. She recommended we start him on solids to help fill him up, then try our best to get him in the habit of going back to sleep without being fed.

I realized that we had no idea how to coax him back to sleep. So I sent out an S.O.S. to my mommy friends. They had all kinds of advice and recommended various books and products, claiming each one was the secret to their children's sleeping success. The best resource we found was The Baby Whisperer. The British best-selling child expert recommended a gentle but firm method to sleep train your baby without forcing him to cry it out on his own. Through her book, we realized that we were enabling him in his bad habits and learned a lot about how to handle a baby with Kaden's personality.

He is a spirited baby, which means that he fights sleep because he doesn't want to miss out and easily overdoes it or gets overstimulated, making it very difficult for him to wind down at the end of the day. So we changed up his bedtime routine, do our best to keep him calm and relaxed in the late afternoon/early evening, and try to keep his room as dark as possible as we coax him to sleep, thereby removing all visual stimuli and distractions. This, combined with feeding him cereal to keep him full at night has made it considerably easier to put him to bed earlier in the evening.

That's a major victory. However, he still wakes up frequently and refuses to put himself back down without being fed. The Baby Whisperer recommended what she calls the "Pick-up/Put-Down" method to teach babies to go to sleep on their own. Essentially, you pick them up and soothe them till they stop crying, then immediately put them back down instead of rocking them to sleep. Repeat as many as 50-100 times if necessary until they get the message that you are there to support them, but they have to put themselves to sleep. This seemed to work the first couple of nights and so Kaden was sleeping longer stretches of time and I didn't have to feed him quite as frequently.

Then all progress stopped. The PU/PD method only works if babies stop crying when they get picked up. But Kaden screams and arches his back if I pick him up but don't feed him. He won't let us put the pacifier in his mouth and swats our hands away if we try to stroke him or hold his hands to help him calm down. He doesn't respond to swaying, rocking, bouncing, singing or shushing. Changing his diaper makes no difference. He will fight us, for over an hour, until I give in and feed him. But then once I do that, he immediately relaxes and will put himself to sleep.

All this to say, things are better than they were, but we are still struggling with "sleep training" and I am still exhausted most of the time. Sleep training is incredibly frustrating. Every person and every book gives you contradictory advice and it's really hard not to feel like a failure as you oscillate between trying to establish good habits for the future and doing what it takes to survive in the present.

A friend shared a blog post with me that sums up my sleep training woes. It illustrates the overload of contradictory information we parents are currently faced with as we desperately try to get our little ones to sleep. Here is an excerpt:

"You shouldn’t sleep train at all, before a year, before 6 months, or before 4 months, but if you wait too late, your baby will never be able to sleep without you. College-aged children never need to be nursed, rocked, helped to sleep, so don’t worry about any bad habits. Nursing, rocking, singing, swaddling, etc to sleep are all bad habits and should be stopped immediately.

Naps should only be taken in the bed, never in a swing, car seat, stroller, or when worn. Letting them sleep in the car seat or swing will damage their skulls. If your baby has trouble falling asleep in the bed, put them in a swing, car seat, stroller, or wear them. Use the crib only for sleep and keep it free of distractions. If the baby is having trouble adjusting to the crib, have them play in it first. If the baby wakes up at night and wants to play, put fun toys in the crib to distract them.

Put the baby in a nursery, bed in your room, in your bed. Co-sleeping is the best way to get sleep, except that it can kill your baby, so never, ever do it. If your baby doesn't die, you will need to bed-share until college...

Don’t let your baby sleep too long, except when they’ve been napping too much, then you should wake them. Never wake a sleeping baby. Any baby problem can be solved by putting them to bed earlier, even if they are waking up too early. If your baby wakes up too early, put them to bed later or cut out a nap. Don’t let them nap after 5 p.m. Sleep begets sleep, so try to get your child to sleep as much as possible. Put the baby to bed awake but drowsy. Don't wake the baby if it fell asleep while nursing."

See what I mean? Every expert speaks in absolutes, but they all contradict each other. I've decided that my generation of parents are all a little too concerned with being "great parents" and just end up stressing ourselves and our babies out as we try to force them to conform to a certain philosophy. Our desperation for information has created a huge market for books on sleep training. Each expert tries to sell you on their preferred method - but really, trying to get a baby to sleep through the night is a total guessing game.

I'm realizing (too late, I'm afraid) that worldly wisdom only goes so far... Yes, I would love for Kaden to learn to put himself to sleep at night. However, I think it's better for our physical and emotional health and the bond of trust between us if I comfort him as he wants to be comforted. Until we're confidant he's getting the calories he needs in order to keep growing at a healthy rate, I'm not going to deny him food when he's screaming for it and clawing at my front. Now that we've got him to the point where he's only waking up about 3 times a night and doesn't really need to be fed more than twice to go back to sleep, I think that's manageable - for now.

We'd appreciate some prayers for continued guidance and patience as we try and make progress in the right direction from now on. Maybe by this time next year I can get an uninterrupted night's sleep. ;^) Till then, I'll try to treasure my midnight snuggle sessions with my squirmy little man and remember that he won't be this small and need my help for much longer. Every season has its blessings and its challenges. And when it all seems too much, I just have to remind myself over and over again: "This, too, shall pass... This, too, shall pass... This, too, shall pass..."