sleeping time
I shall interrupt my (not very interesting) account of my family's visit to write about the kids and sleep. Again. What can I say? When they sleep badly, this means I sleep badly too.
The Bun has always been a good sleeper since he was an infant, and this mostly remains the status quo today. He knows the rules of bedtime: after snuggles, he has to go to sleep, and if he wakes at night, he should try to go back to sleep himself without waking me, unless it is really really important. I had to institute this clause after being woken up at three and four a.m. (twice in a night!) to address his search for a missing feather in his bedcovers. In the dark.
The other rule is that if he has to go pee in the middle of the night, he should go do it himself and not wake me to accompany him. If I am woken and go to his room to offer e.g. comfort after bad dreams, he eventually has to go back to sleep on his own without me sitting around his room waiting for him to fall asleep. It took us AGES to get to that point and was based on his crucial understanding that when Mummy doesn't get enough sleep, she morphs into Mean Mummy the next day, so when I tell him in the middle of the night that I now have to go back to sleep or I'd be very tired the next day, he agrees to leave me alone.
The last and final rule is that if he wakes early and doesn't want to go back to bed, he can't come and wake me until 7.30am unless I'm already up. He can play quietly or even grab a snack on his own, but he shouldn't wake me. Once 7.30am arrives, he is welcome to come into bed with J and I for snuggles before we all get up together.
Generally these rules work because by nature, The Bun is a rule follower. It helps that he intrinsically enjoys sleep and being in bed and if left to his own devices will often return to his bed to snuggle with his lovey quietly. (He is very much like J in this way!) He is also a sound sleeper which I am so grateful for since Bao is a very very light sleeper but a very very loud crier, so at least when she wakes and screams in the middle of the night she doesn't wake The Bun as well.
I'm pretty sure that when Bao moves out of her crib into a bed of her own she won't be quite so good with the bedtime rules as her brother. Judging from her sleep record from the past few months, the moment she graduates from the crib it will party time, all night long. Previously in early March I wrote about her twice-nightly wakings for milk. There was a brief interval when that stopped and she slept through the night again, but sadly that did not last and she returned to her midnight feeds routine. You could practically set your watch by this: once just after midnight, the next around 4.30am in the morning. It was like having a newborn at home all over again.
No matter how well she ate in the day she would still ask for milk. At one point we were dealing with overfilled and leaking diapers in the morning because the child managed to drink up to 500ml of milk in twelve hours. (Changing her diaper in the middle of the night? It's hard enough to change it in the day when she's in a good mood, I'm not going to change it at 4am when she has turned into a starving witch.) Often she would go back to sleep after a feed, but sometimes she wouldn't, and instead stand up and shout things like 'READ!' or 'MILK'! And then I would try to convince her that she had just had a bottle, the kitchen's closed, just go the #$%^ to sleep child.
Eventually in my sleep-deprived haze I realised that she shouted 'milk' out of habit and not out of hunger. She had come to expect that whenever she woke in the middle of the night, she would be rewarded with a cuddle and a warm bottle of yumminess. If she couldn't fall back asleep even after a feed, she would simply just stand up again and demand the same thing. Yes, it's not rocket science, and having been through similar with The Bun I should have cottoned on earlier, but well, I'm getting old and all.
While my family was visiting I just gave in to Bao and fed her on demand because I didn't want her to scream the apartment down and wake everyone up. (And also because my mother would keep nagging me about letting her cry.) After they left she went on with her usual pattern and I was tired of the broken sleep. So two nights ago at the usual 4am feed, I decided on the spot that enough was enough and she could jolly well learn to sleep without a night feed.
She screamed. I don't know for how long, but it felt long. I would pick her up if she cried for it, but once she had quietened I would then put her back down again in the crib. This enraged her, and we quickly reached the meltdown point where she was pushing everything away - my arms, her pacifier, her duckie - just kicking and screaming. When she got tired of screaming, she would quieten down for a bit and then start from the top. Again, I would pick her up and then put her back down again, telling her that it was 'sleeping time' and there would be no milk, reading, or playing.
'Sleeping time' was repeated several times that night. If I could get her to lie down without wailing, I would praise her quietly by stroking her face and saying 'good girl, go to sleep', but she would soon get up again for more screaming. Throughout it all, I either sat on my bed silently or lay back down. Eventually the screaming turned to whimpering, and eventually the whimpering turned to sleep.
When she woke in the morning she was none the worse for wear, bouncing around and eager to play and get the day started. I sat her on my lap and told her that now it there was 'no more sleeping time' and her eyes widened. I repeated the words and suddenly her lower lip jutted out and trembled and her eyes filled with tears. She remembered all the crying that she did and the words I had said to her at night! Her expression was so funny that I felt more amused than guilty, I have to say.
The second night, last night, was a repeat of the first. She still screamed, but the entire episode was distinctively shorter than the first night's.
Her 'sleeping time' pout.
Two days down the road, and now if you say 'sleeping time' in a serious tone of voice to her she will make her sad bunny face each time, but I think she does it now because she knows it makes us smile to see her pout. Before her nap and bedtime, when she's truly tired and craving sleep, I also tell her that it's 'sleeping time' hoping that she associates the relief of sleep with the words.
I didn't expect to go down the cry-it-out route with Bao since it never really happened with The Bun. I don't think she's entirely crying it out either - I'm physically present throughout and if she asks or gets very upset I will pick her up (but not talk to her beyond 'it's sleeping time'). Bao's personality is quite different from her brother and with her it's literally a case of who can outlast the other. It's still early days (nights?) and who knows if this strategy will work or if I will give up and just give her the damn bottles because it's easier.
I know her night wakings are probably part of some developmental leap she's going through, but I am also quite sure that she is at the point where she needs to learn boundaries in many aspects of life. She's really pushing the envelope on almost everything from the moment she wakes, and apparently this continues in her sleep. Everything happening right now with her is simply a part of growing up. Who ever said the Terrible Twos began at two? We're well and truly in the thick of it, and I'll be writing more on her (mis)adventures and (mis)behaviour soon.
The Bun has always been a good sleeper since he was an infant, and this mostly remains the status quo today. He knows the rules of bedtime: after snuggles, he has to go to sleep, and if he wakes at night, he should try to go back to sleep himself without waking me, unless it is really really important. I had to institute this clause after being woken up at three and four a.m. (twice in a night!) to address his search for a missing feather in his bedcovers. In the dark.
The other rule is that if he has to go pee in the middle of the night, he should go do it himself and not wake me to accompany him. If I am woken and go to his room to offer e.g. comfort after bad dreams, he eventually has to go back to sleep on his own without me sitting around his room waiting for him to fall asleep. It took us AGES to get to that point and was based on his crucial understanding that when Mummy doesn't get enough sleep, she morphs into Mean Mummy the next day, so when I tell him in the middle of the night that I now have to go back to sleep or I'd be very tired the next day, he agrees to leave me alone.
The last and final rule is that if he wakes early and doesn't want to go back to bed, he can't come and wake me until 7.30am unless I'm already up. He can play quietly or even grab a snack on his own, but he shouldn't wake me. Once 7.30am arrives, he is welcome to come into bed with J and I for snuggles before we all get up together.
Generally these rules work because by nature, The Bun is a rule follower. It helps that he intrinsically enjoys sleep and being in bed and if left to his own devices will often return to his bed to snuggle with his lovey quietly. (He is very much like J in this way!) He is also a sound sleeper which I am so grateful for since Bao is a very very light sleeper but a very very loud crier, so at least when she wakes and screams in the middle of the night she doesn't wake The Bun as well.
I'm pretty sure that when Bao moves out of her crib into a bed of her own she won't be quite so good with the bedtime rules as her brother. Judging from her sleep record from the past few months, the moment she graduates from the crib it will party time, all night long. Previously in early March I wrote about her twice-nightly wakings for milk. There was a brief interval when that stopped and she slept through the night again, but sadly that did not last and she returned to her midnight feeds routine. You could practically set your watch by this: once just after midnight, the next around 4.30am in the morning. It was like having a newborn at home all over again.
No matter how well she ate in the day she would still ask for milk. At one point we were dealing with overfilled and leaking diapers in the morning because the child managed to drink up to 500ml of milk in twelve hours. (Changing her diaper in the middle of the night? It's hard enough to change it in the day when she's in a good mood, I'm not going to change it at 4am when she has turned into a starving witch.) Often she would go back to sleep after a feed, but sometimes she wouldn't, and instead stand up and shout things like 'READ!' or 'MILK'! And then I would try to convince her that she had just had a bottle, the kitchen's closed, just go the #$%^ to sleep child.
Eventually in my sleep-deprived haze I realised that she shouted 'milk' out of habit and not out of hunger. She had come to expect that whenever she woke in the middle of the night, she would be rewarded with a cuddle and a warm bottle of yumminess. If she couldn't fall back asleep even after a feed, she would simply just stand up again and demand the same thing. Yes, it's not rocket science, and having been through similar with The Bun I should have cottoned on earlier, but well, I'm getting old and all.
While my family was visiting I just gave in to Bao and fed her on demand because I didn't want her to scream the apartment down and wake everyone up. (And also because my mother would keep nagging me about letting her cry.) After they left she went on with her usual pattern and I was tired of the broken sleep. So two nights ago at the usual 4am feed, I decided on the spot that enough was enough and she could jolly well learn to sleep without a night feed.
She screamed. I don't know for how long, but it felt long. I would pick her up if she cried for it, but once she had quietened I would then put her back down again in the crib. This enraged her, and we quickly reached the meltdown point where she was pushing everything away - my arms, her pacifier, her duckie - just kicking and screaming. When she got tired of screaming, she would quieten down for a bit and then start from the top. Again, I would pick her up and then put her back down again, telling her that it was 'sleeping time' and there would be no milk, reading, or playing.
'Sleeping time' was repeated several times that night. If I could get her to lie down without wailing, I would praise her quietly by stroking her face and saying 'good girl, go to sleep', but she would soon get up again for more screaming. Throughout it all, I either sat on my bed silently or lay back down. Eventually the screaming turned to whimpering, and eventually the whimpering turned to sleep.
When she woke in the morning she was none the worse for wear, bouncing around and eager to play and get the day started. I sat her on my lap and told her that now it there was 'no more sleeping time' and her eyes widened. I repeated the words and suddenly her lower lip jutted out and trembled and her eyes filled with tears. She remembered all the crying that she did and the words I had said to her at night! Her expression was so funny that I felt more amused than guilty, I have to say.
The second night, last night, was a repeat of the first. She still screamed, but the entire episode was distinctively shorter than the first night's.
Her 'sleeping time' pout.
Two days down the road, and now if you say 'sleeping time' in a serious tone of voice to her she will make her sad bunny face each time, but I think she does it now because she knows it makes us smile to see her pout. Before her nap and bedtime, when she's truly tired and craving sleep, I also tell her that it's 'sleeping time' hoping that she associates the relief of sleep with the words.
I didn't expect to go down the cry-it-out route with Bao since it never really happened with The Bun. I don't think she's entirely crying it out either - I'm physically present throughout and if she asks or gets very upset I will pick her up (but not talk to her beyond 'it's sleeping time'). Bao's personality is quite different from her brother and with her it's literally a case of who can outlast the other. It's still early days (nights?) and who knows if this strategy will work or if I will give up and just give her the damn bottles because it's easier.
I know her night wakings are probably part of some developmental leap she's going through, but I am also quite sure that she is at the point where she needs to learn boundaries in many aspects of life. She's really pushing the envelope on almost everything from the moment she wakes, and apparently this continues in her sleep. Everything happening right now with her is simply a part of growing up. Who ever said the Terrible Twos began at two? We're well and truly in the thick of it, and I'll be writing more on her (mis)adventures and (mis)behaviour soon.