Slacker Mom, Part 1: Sleep

[jenn_unplugged]

I've been mulling over a series of posts on my parenting philosophy, and now that my summer school class is over, I think I'll start. This is partly for record-keeping and partly for discussion. I want to remember what I was thinking at this point in my parenting experience when I look back

Comments

[lauramcewan]

rock on, sister!

[jenn_unplugged]

:-D

[ahurani]

Easily the most annoying question I got about Liam when he was younger. I absolutely agree that if the family is content with how sleep is going, then why on earth should anyone else care? And there's definitely no one "right" way. Adults don't all have the same sleep patterns/preferences, so why should babies? And where on earth did the concept come from that how a baby sleeps should be a value judgement?

For our family, we ended up doing a relatively flexible schedule, but still a schedule. But I was also working full time and then also went back to school when he was 4 months old, so I NEEDED that time in the evenings. He's slept all night in his own room since maybe 18 months or so...before that we co-slept either all or part of the night. And we did so because it resulted in the most people getting the most sleep.

[jenn_unplugged]

ITA that what works for a family sleepwise is what they should do. That's something I heard a lot on parenting communities early on, and it really rang true for me. And it let me off the hook, heh, because I didn't have to go out of my way to do anything just because I was "supposed" to.

We thought we'd move Carter to his own room around 4 months, and then we thought it would be around 12 months, and then around 2 years... and he's still sleeping with us. I can't imagine it any other way at this point. We have a king-sized bed and also a crib side-carred to the bed, so we have a lot of room. The only times I've really wished Carter would sleep on his own were when we were traveling and in a smaller bed. That was pretty rough. :-P

[ahurani]

Yeah, we only have a queen-sized bed and didn't side-car his crib...so once he started getting bigger, we ran out of room pretty quickly. And at this point, if we're in the same room as him when he's trying to go to sleep, he just fusses and fusses, but won't even settle if I bring him into our bed. So we now have to make sure we get hotel rooms with a separate bedroom when we travel. :)

Shortly after I went back to school, I was going crazy with the sleep situation, which is when we finally started trying to make things at least a little consistent. I think my parents were just laughing because I never slept well when I was younger. But now more often than not, Liam "reads" to himself (he's used a book as a lovey for over a year now...also adorable) in his crib after nursing and eventually goes to sleep on his own. It's really cute when he says "night-night" right before hand, even though he's alone

[jenn_unplugged]

One thing I didn't say above (that I meant to, argh) was that during Carter's first year, I spent a lot of time trying to read his sleepy cues. I read NCSS and the Sears Sleep Book, and those helped me figure out when he was getting tired. Then we did what we ended up calling "offering sleep", where I (or Doug or the nanny) would pick Carter up and snuggle with him, and see what happened. If we timed it right, he'd go to sleep easily

[sprgtime]

Great post! I love it

[jenn_unplugged]

I realized after reading these comments that I left out something important in my post, which is that I spent some time figuring out Carter's sleepy cues during his first year, and that made a huge difference. We call it "offering sleep" here -- when he starts to show the first signs that he's sleepy, one of us takes him to the couch or to the guest room and cuddles with him and "offers sleep". If we time it right, he'll go to sleep pretty quickly. (His nanny is very good at this!) If he's not ready, he'll jump up and go back to whatever he was doing -- and I go back to whatever I was doing

[glasshouses]

Interesting. Lucas thrives on a schedule, and gets very cranky, and sometimes panicky if we deviate very much. That may be tied into Aspergers, I don't know.

I let him sleep a little later in the summer with no school, and he usually wakes me up. That cuddle time in the morning, and at night when he's sleepy but not asleep are wonderful times.

I am also very lucky that he started sleeping all night at 4 months. With us both working full time I was a zombie before that. We didn't have to do anything. When he got to be 8 months or so he found it a game to get us up at night if he woke up, and so I took a hard line, he learned it wasn't worth it, and when he woke in the morning he was happy as a clam.

The next challenge was 'night terrors' and him getting up and turning on his light. That lasted about 18 months and we just did a lot of soothing and proving there were no monsters and he outgrew that too, thankfully!

I think I will enjoy your slacker posts :-) Although if you are a slacker mom, I must be a catatonic mom!

[jenn_unplugged]

Cuddle time in the morning is the best!

It's interesting that some kids just sleep easier than others. That's part of why it seems pointless to worry about whether your own kid is sleeping like someone else's, or like some preconceived idea you had about how they should sleep.

One thing that really helped me was to read a lot about developmental phases, and whenever Carter had a disruption in his sleep, it almost always mapped onto some developmental leap he was currently making. So being a slacker, I didn't worry about it or try to change it, and sure enough, it would resolve itself within a few weeks, and he'd have made the predicted cognitive jump.

I think that's what I mean here by "slacker", and I should define it in my next post. It's about not acting instead of acting in situations where what's happening is totally developmentally normal, and giving the child the space and support they need to grow. It looks like you're just doing nothing, but in reality you've made an informed choice to do nothing