Fell Asleep at the Table!

If you know the Vandervort kids, you probably know that they never sleep.

Ok, maybe that's not true, but what is true is that our kids rarely fall asleep anywhere but in their beds. It doesn't usually matter how tired, how much running, how late, etc. They just aren't the kind of kids to lay their weary heads down and just sleep.

We had a surprise visit from Emily & Adam & co. today. We went to 2 playgrounds (outdoor until we got cold, then to the indoor one) and they boys played straight through naptime. After we were done playing we went next door and had lunch/dinner. Neither Isaac, nor Ian, nor Aaron, nor Asher misbehaved at dinner. They sat nice and ate well. As Aaron was finishing up his meal, I kept looking at him thinking, man, he looks tired! He was holding his own, but then literally before our eyes he started to sway. I asked Roger to pick him up because I was afraid he was going to hit his head on the table.

He absolutely, 100 percent fell asleep in his high chair sitting at a restaurant. 

Hilarious! And pathetic!

I wish I had snapped a picture of the rare occasion. 

That is how hard they played today!

I can't wait until spring/summer & the daytripping with the cousins the warmer weather will bring!

Sleep, Precious Sleep

In the last month or so, I've been asked several times how Roger & I regularly manage to get all three children sleeping at the same time. I decided that, while I'm certainly no expert, I could blog about it.

It is no secret that our kids haven't always been good sleepers.  In fact, they sucked at sleeping. 

But  it seems that we've stumbled upon a method to get all of our children down for naps and bed at the same time, most of the time.

First, we do not abide by the old adage, "Never wake a sleeping baby." Well, actually it depends on your definition of "baby." Beyond the newborn stage, we do not abide. Why not? In order to get all the kids sleeping at relatively the same time, they need to be tired at the same time. If Lauren falls asleep at 11am, that's fine, but if she sleeps longer than 20 minutes she won't be ready for an afternoon nap. So...I wake her. I don't startle her awake or abruptly wake her, but I do make an environment that makes it more difficult for her to sleep. (Read: I put her down.) Same story in the afternoons... We never let the boys sleep past 4:30pm. If we do, they won't go to bed before 10pm and that makes for a tired morning.

Second, we do the same routine every afternoon before nap and every night before bed.

Around 12pm, we have lunch. Then we watch a show and drink milk. Around 1pm, I take one of the boys (usually Aaron) to his bedroom, read a story or two, give kisses, and into his bed. Then I do the same for the other boy. Then I nurse Lauren until she's sleeping and she goes to her bed. Then...I don't make ANY noise. Yeah, yeah, yeah, your kids "should get used to sleeping through noise." Nope. Not in this house. My kids are incredibly light sleepers. If I want them to sleep, I don't make noise.

For bedtime, we do a bath most nights, the jammies, a show while eating a snack & drinking milk, do medicines (for Aaron), brush teeth, read stories, give kisses, into bed. Sometimes Roger does it all himself at bedtime (awesome to have daddy be so great at bedtimes & very useful too.)  It really is a good idea to have more than one person able to do bedtime with your kids... you know, in case you have to stay overnight in the hospital or something...

We are by no means perfect.  And our kids had to Cry-it-Out eventually, but this is what is working for us now!

Stay tuned, though, because we are about to move Ian and Aaron together and most likely will have to make some changes.

Someone Asked *ME* for Sleep Advice

LOL LOL.

First of all, to think that someone would ask ME for advice on toddler sleep makes me both smile and roll my eyes. (to myself)  If she ONLY knew.

Obviously she doesn't know me well and totally missed my first two babies' sleep issues.  So what she sees is me, with my newborn in the moby wrap, my two well-rested sons playing on the playground, using good manners, etc.  And then she hears my 3 year old come and ask to go home because he is tired.  Then she hears me say that we have to go as soon as Lauren is done nursing so we can get home to have lunch and take naps.

She turns and says, "How on earth do you get them all to take naps?!"

So I gave her the short answer about the same routine every day.  (We get up, eat, play, go out of the house for errands or to play, come home, eat lunch, have milk and tv time, go read a story in the bedroom and lay down for naps.)  And that was not satisfactory.

She wanted the full Monty about how I got them to sleep while they were still toddlers that nursed.  How did I get them to sleep all night?  To go to sleep on their own?  To let someone other than me put them to bed?  To *gasp* have my husband attend to them at night.

And I had to admit that I had to sleep train them using the graduated extinction method of Cry It Out.

As usual, I was expecting a disgusted, annoyed look on her face.  Why? Because even though most moms I know have had to let their babies cry about sleep, it still seems to have a bit of a stigma.  I know, back in my just-Ian-days, I used to think moms who practiced CIO were torturing their children.  ("Wasn't there another way?!")

Instead of the disgusted look, she smiled and said, "and it worked?" 

I said, "And it worked.  And continues to work.  And now both of my young boys go to sleep on their own and sleep all night long.  They both lay down in their beds for their naps and most always take a 2 hour nap."

Unsatisfied, she pressed me harder about HOW I did it. 

And why I thought it worked...

So I told her that as my children get older and I get more seasoned as a mother, I've come to think that hardly any children just simply lay down and go to sleep without being taught how to do it.  I waited so long with Ian because I didn't want him to cry about it that I regretted it when we finally did it...regretted that we didn't do it sooner. Remember?  We tried EVERYTHING to get Ian to sleep without crying about it.

With Aaron I waited and waited because he was sick so much I didn't want another ounce of crying or hard times for him.  (Read about Aaron's CIO here and here)

I'm sure I'll wait with Lauren for one reason or another.

But ultimately, I know it is coming this time and I've accepted that the graduated extinction method of crying it out is not torture.  It doesn't mean you don't love your child.  It doesn't mean their cries don't rip you to shreds when you hear them.  It doesn't mean you have given up on tender love and care.  It means you need sleep and you're willing to endure a few hard nights to get it.  It means you have decided that sleeping better is better for everyone in the house and that you know there are better nights ahead.

She just looked at me as I was going on and on... justifying it.  I don't know why I feel I have to justify it.  I guess because I still know how I felt before I had experienced the sleepless nights and exhausted days and the process of sleep training and the success.

So why am I still justifying it?  Just in case someone reads this who needs to hear it is ok to let your baby cry a little bit when the goal is better sleep for everyone.

Sleep Update

It's been about a week since I posted the Bedtime Battles update about Aaron's sleeping. I'm back to report that the past 7 nights have been great! Aaron seems to have taken to going to sleep on his own and sleeping in his bed through the night. He sometimes still cries a bit at bedtime, (I'm talking like 5 min or less... usually less than 30 seconds if at all.) but I haven't had to revisit his room at bedtime a single time in more than a week. For awhile since we started sleep training he would cry at the mere mention of "bed, crib, nap, bedtime," but that reaction has now passed too.

I think it has now been 5 nights that Aaron has slept through the entire night. Perhaps a whimper around 3:30am (he must have a regular sleep-cycle waking around that time), but if we listen for more than one whimper, there is not another one. He's putting himself back to sleep!

He has started waking rather early... today it was 6:48am, but I'd rather have an early waking with a full-night's sleep than sleeping later in the morning, but up all night long.

Aaron's daytime anxiety seems to be improving a bit too. Perhaps he's just reached a new milestone entirely and is coming to the "end stages" of the anxious period that all toddlers go through. Perhaps teaching him to self-soothe in the night has given him some extra confidence during the day. He's still my cuddly little guy who prefers I stay nearby, but he's becoming more open to mama being out of sight for longer periods and to being comforted by others who are not mama.

We've made serious progress. I'm so delighted! Praise the Lord that we've made it (mostly) through another period of "difficult parenting" and lived to talk about it! I say "mostly" because we are realists when it comes to parenting in this house and know that there are always setbacks when it comes to milestones and stages of development. There will be times to come when Aaron resists bedtime again and wakes in the night. But I'm going to declare this hurdle "mostly" crossed and look forward to the next challenge!