This picture is how I want to remember Lil G’s infancy. I look at this picture and already want to cry from nostalgia, and I’m still in the thick of sore nipples and sleepless nights and too many crying spells (me). This moment, though. This is precious.
Maybe you’ve heard of it, it’s all over the major parenting news sites. Maybe you’ve trolled the over 40 pages of reviews on Amazon, mostly for a good laugh. Maybe you haven’t heard of it yet, but after reading this, you’ll go read the reviews (because seriously, great material for chuckles).
It’s The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep. A self-published book written by a psychologist in Sweden and translated into English.
It claims to make anyone fall asleep. And for a mere $12, I figured that it wouldn’t hurt. Our bedtime routine this summer had creeped up to 2+ hours, and I was seriously at my wits end. Potamus just hates going to sleep.
The plot in a nutshell, is that Roger the Rabbit is sleepy but has a hard time falling asleep. So he goes to a Wizard named Uncle Yawn, and along the way meets a few characters who give him some helpful advice. Readers are asked to emphasize the bolded sentences, and speak slowly and softly in the italicized portions, and “use your best fairytale voice.” If you can get beyond some of the strange tense changes, lots of words on each page, and home drawn pictures, to the heart of the story, then this book is great.
We were on vacation the first two nights that we started reading it. Night 1, Potamus had about 6,785 questions about the plot. “Why is Roger a rabbit? Why can’t he sleep? Where is his Daddy? Why is Uncle Yawn a person and not a rabbit?” I thought I was going to punch something. The book takes at least 25 minutes to read, so with his gazillion questions, I thought surely we were in for a long haul night (given that it was a new place).
Five minutes after the book ended?
Out like a light.
He simply turned over on his side and fell asleep.
I mean, seriously. It was magical to not have to sing 5 songs, rub his back for 30 minutes, get another glass of water, another snack, another song. Asleep.
We’ve been reading the book every night since. About 10 days in total. He asks for it at night, after his other 2-3 stories. Some nights (especially when Boof reads it in his deep man-voice) he falls asleep after a few pages. Sometimes he muscles through to the very end, but is out after 5-10 minutes of lying quietly in bed next to me. The cadence of reading, the repetition and the use of relaxation and hypnosis/guided meditation techniques, seem to help him calm his mind and body.
I’d recommend it. It’s not perfect, like anything. As an English major I have serious issue with some of the poor sentence construction, and lack of editing. But for us, it has been a very helpful tool in creating a bedtime ritual that is actually soothing for him. While bedtimes are not a snap, the fact that he’s asleep within 35-40 minutes from when we start the the process, certainly feels like magic! I’d say give it at least 3-4 times of reading it before throwing in the towel (unless the kid is older and adamantly refuses to listen to it, of course! You know your kid best!)
P.S. Every time I read the story, Boof falls asleep. Even when he tries to distract himself with his smart phone. I start reading and he starts snoring. I tell him that means he’s chronically sleep deprived…but he disagrees. Ha!
This summer has been ROUGH in the sleep department. Partly the sunshine streaming in the window until well past 9pm, partly an attachment toddler who wants his mama thisclose to him all.the.time when he’s sleeping, has led to a spiral of sleep deprivation that was just not working anymore. Potamus needed a good 2.5-3 hours of me laying in his bed with him before he would fall asleep. We’d start bedtime routine around 7, and it’d be close to 10 every.damn.night before he’d fall asleep. We tried mixing it up, doing really active things before bedtime routine started (running, wrestling, playing hard). We tried quiet activities before bedtime routine (reading stories, turning off all electronics, warm showers). NOTHING worked. Not only did it take that long to fall asleep, he’d only stay asleep about 1-2 hours at most, and then want Mama. Which meant, in my exhaustion, he was coming into bed with me before I had really even gotten any sleep for the night.
Now, I’m not opposed to co-sleeping…when it’s working. But his restlessness would continue, even after he was snuggled in bed with me. He’d kick his legs and twiddle my neck, digging his fingernails into my chin…all night long. I would wake up crabby and exhausted and frustrated that it wasn’t going well.
So I made an appointment with our pediatrician. I thought maybe it was growing pains? Or after a quick google search I saw things like Restless Leg Syndrome, or iron deficiency, or all sorts of other ailments. But I love our pediatrician and figured he’d be able to help.
His diagnosis: poor sleep hygiene.
What I love about this guy, is that he has a way of saying things in the kindest, gentlest way, while also sharing about his life. He said that the only way to get Potamus to sleep differently was going to be making the behaviors go extinct, which means, not reinforcing them, which means…not laying next to him for 3 hours to get to sleep. But then he told me that it’s not something I HAVE to do, but told me how to do it, if I wanted to do it, in a way that I would feel good about. And then he divulged that his family co-sleeps, and his son is almost 10 and ‘really small and immature for his size, and he comes into our bed every night to snuggle. he just needs to sleep next to a human being for awhile to feel safe.’
Yeah, my pediatrician co-sleeps his older elementary school age son. So he’s not just telling me to leave a 3 week old in a crib to cry it out. I felt hopeful. He said it’d be hard, but it’d work.
And so that’s what were doing. We read stories, and snuggle, and I give unlimited hugs. I’m still in his bed until he falls asleep, but I’m no longer laying next to him. And until 2am (ideally around 5 would be best), if he wakes up crying, I go in there and snuggle him, and put him back in his bed, and wait until he falls asleep. The first two nights were brutal. It took him awhile to fall asleep, and then he was restless for a good hour in the middle of the night (aka midnight). He’d fall asleep, but as soon as I’d creep out he’d wake back up. He’d want 4 more hugs and then he’d go back to sleep.
My goal is not to eliminate co-sleeping for good, just alter it a bit so we’re all getting sleep. Because work starts back for me in 2 weeks, and he can’t be going to bed at 10pm and getting up at 6. He’ll be a crabby zombie.
We’re at 4 nights this week, and last night he fell asleep ‘on his own’ (with me there) relatively easily. And at midnight he woke up crying, but in the time it took me to pee, he had soothed himself back asleep. I went in there and checked on him…zonked out. He came into our bed around 3am. Already he’s getting more sleep in a row than before, AND when he does sleep next to me there is snuggling, but no twiddling, kicking, tossing and turning. He reaches out to touch me, then curls into himself and passes out. Exactly what I hoped for in our sleep relationship. I like having his little warm body next to mine, but I also like sleep.
I’m so thankful that I have a compassionate pediatrician who listens to my life and helps create a plan for making it fit into our lifestyle. I feel like I’m able to do a modified ‘cry it out’ (without any crying?) that suits my attachment parenting needs, without going to an extreme that doesn’t feel congruent with my values as a mom.
So here’s to a few more hours of blissful sleep…for all of us. 🙂
You know when your kids is super restless and it takes 2 hours to get him to sleep, but keeping him asleep means having his sharp talons toenails digging into the soft flesh of your stomach, rendering you with only 4 hours of sleep, so you cancel your morning yoga class to enjoy a good 3.5 hours of napping bliss while kiddo is in daycare before you head off to get 6 fillings in your mouth, but when you go to take this luxurious nap you lay there for an hour and cannot sleep? At all?
Yeah, it’s not a good feeling. I mean, at least I’m getting to sit here catching up on some lovely recorded TV shows and stuffing my face with MegaStuf oreos, but that doesn’t feel as good as yoga would have. Or a nap. I desperately need a nap. But I will settle for the second best- Mt. Dew at the RoundTable pizza buffet. This is how I survive. One hour to another hour to another hour.
I’ve been reflecting on all of the lovely advice from IRL and bloggy friends on my post: Be Nice. I feel that it took me so long to learn how to give voice to my feelings, having been labelled shy as a kid, and totally fear of rejection and being judged that I wouldn’t talk about what I was thinking or believed in. So when I learned how to use my voice, I unleashed. A damn has broken and I’m not afraid to speak up. But now I get to learn how to…not speak up, in the moment, especially when it might make things worse. I want to explore this more, about the power in choosing when to speak, now that I know I CAN speak, ya know?
So it’s really about this internal experience/perception/reality vs. an outer experience/perception/reality. Like how everything on Sunday went ‘just fine’ with my siter and family, but I still felt internally awkward because of the conflict. Like when I’m in yoga class and the instructor says “straight back” and I feel like my back is straight, but then I look in the mirror and realize that…um…I’m really swaybacked. Like a broken old nag whose given far too many rides to fatass cowboys. Yeah, the difference between how I feel internally (straight back) and the reality (swayback) is striking.
“Hey Monk-Monk, how’s weaning going?” a well meaning friend asked me recently.
“Um. Uh. Yeah. Um…it’s not,” I replied
Because, I’m too damn tired. And the kid has stopped biting, and has been going to sleep after nursing (though he’s not milk drunk anymore…EVER, but he’s stopped freaking out when I unlatch and tell him no more, and that it’s time to go to sleep. And when I say he’s stopped freaking out, I mean, he only cries for like…5 heart-wrenching minutes, as he snuggles down. To help with weaning (at least in my mind), I’ve started having him sleep in our bed when he wakes up around midnight. And he’s not been wanting to nurse in the middle of the night, since he’s snuggled in to my armpit. For the most part, it’s been pretty sweet…
But can we talk about the AWKWARDNESS of sleeping with a toddler? Like waking up with a leg on your neck? Or having to pee in the middle of the night, which causes a FREAKOUT by Mr. Toddler-Crabby-Pants. Or, even more awkward, is when he climbed on my back (like a baby gorilla), and fell asleep. Which lasted 30 minutes, until he PEED ON MY BACK! Wha??!??!
I mean, we’ve managed to bumble through toddler peeing in our bed, but peeing on my back? Yeah, that’s what’s up in our house, folks. Awesomesauce!
because this looks like a comfy way to sleep…
apparently my chubby chin is very comforting…
Was it the 5 cups of coffee I drank at noon while out to lunch with a friend? The 3 beers or spicy pasta while out to dinner with my mom friends? The ab pain from all the workouts I’ve been doing lately? The lifetime of anxiety that flares up at the WORST POSSIBLE TIMES (like days I know I’ll be home with Potamus for 15-16 hours solo). A husband who can’t stop coughing at night so I’m unable to even drift to sleep. Maybe it’s a combination of all of those, but man, the other night…yeah…I fell asleep at 5am. Whoa. That meant I got a whopping 1.5 hours total, half of which was spent spooning a sweaty toddler.
But somehow I was able to grasp this thought, I can be a good mom, even though I didn’t get any sleep.
Revolutionary.
Sure, I’ve managed to limp along while being tired, but there is this storyline that I have been saying in my head since…before time (certainly before I had kids) that a good night’s sleep = me being happy/adjusted/able to do xyz. Sleep is very important to me. While I’ve managed to dial back me “I need 10 hours asleep a night” storyline, I still had this going on and was believing it. A good night sleep with Potamus meant a good mama the next day. And a bad night sleep meant CERTAIN grumpypants mama.
So there I was, with 16 hours stretching ahead of me, solo, with a toddler who hates naps. I didn’t have the energy to go out and do fun things, so we stayed home, doing quiet activities, and even rested together a little bit in the afternoon. I managed to hold myself together, even finding the energy to have a conversation with a good friend, do some gardening, and read. I’m not sure where the insomnia-anxiety came from, but I didn’t let it get the best of me. And, it felt really good.
Now, wouldn’t it be fabulous if I was able to remember this all the time? Now THAT would be revolutionary! Or, a good night’s sleep would be pretty revolutionary, too. Ammiright?
We played hooky from church (or the idea of going to church) and headed to the zoo. In Seattle we have to make plans regardless of weather forecasts, and luckily the rain held off while we explored a new section of the zoo. Potamus loved the penguins again, but really seemed to think the jaguar was the coolest.
After we got home it was naptime, and I was ready to try my hand at napping, too…about thirty minutes into my sunshine nap on the couch, Potamus woke up…so I punted.
The benefit of still nursing is that I still have this magical power of soothing. His nap had been truncated, so I transferred us to our bed, and BAM, we were out like a light for TWO hours. Holy hell it was amazing, and definitely fits the Sunday day of rest idea. Perhaps I need to embrace co-napping a little bit more!
The soggy morning commute was good for reflection. There was this niggling conversation happening in the back of my brain, since last night’s bedtime meltdown (for Potamus, I kept my cool), which ended in one tired kiddo finally falling asleep after fighting it for almost an hour. This conversation is a mulling over of how my instincts knew what to do to help him calm down, which might seem obvious to other moms, but I am sometimes still surprised by the instinctual nature and intuitive way I have with my son (when I’m not letting myself freak out).
I don’t know where I got this idea, but two or so weeks ago, when Potamus was sitting up and bouncing on his butt waving his hands in the air, crying (which seems outwardly like a mini tantrum), I laid him on his side and played a little game. I grabbed his foot firmly and said, “Is your foot tired?” And then I grabbed his ankle and said, “is your ankle tired?” I moved on up his leg, with firm pressure saying “Is your calf tired? Is your knee tired? Is your thigh tired?” when I got to his waist I moved on to his arms (because he giggled when I asked if his ribs were tired, cause it seemed ticklish). Firm pressure on his wrist, then arm, then elbow and up to his shoulder. And then I did the other side.
Last night, after two repetitions, he was asleep. And, we put the rice pack, that we used to use instead of a swaddle in our bed, on his belly, and he stayed there sleeping peacefully. A far cry from the crazy energy from 10 minutes earlier.
“Good job mama bear,” Boof said as the ordeal was over. Exhausted, I slinked off to bed while he went to get himself some dinner. 9:00 pm.
I found it hard to fall asleep, though.
I kept wondering and brooding about about how I knew that that’s what he needed. How did I, two weeks ago, come up with that ‘game’ to play to get him to fall asleep?
Part of my brain said, “well, maybe he’s growing. And your legs used to hurt when you were growing. And your adoptive dad used to rub your legs to help you fall asleep after growing pains or nightmares.”
Yes….but…
That answer just didn’t resonate with me. The motion that I used, the pressure going up one side and down the other, seemed…intuitive almost. As if it was something that MY body was craving.
I think the hardest part about being an adoptee, is the second-guessing of myself and all of the relationships around me. I walk through life often feeling misunderstood, first by my adoptive family, but often by others, as well. My facial expressions and posture when I’m tired or thinking were often criticized and pestered with “are you upset? are you angry? what’s wrong?” by my adoptive parents. But for all of this feeling misunderstood, that my moods and way of being in the world is abnormal, I have adapted by watching and experiencing how others are in the world. I can anticipate my adoptive mother’s moods like a pro navigator. I sense and feel and craft my words carefully to have the maximum impact on the family around me. I have adapted.
But, I look at Potamus, and am surprised at how I navigate the process of figuring out his needs. While I write a lot, here, about our interactions, a lot of it is simply happening in my head and body. When I say he whines and I don’t pick him up, I really mean that he whines and I pick him up but inside I wrestle with that decision and think about what it’d be like to not pick him up. But this distance and brain calucalations is exhausting and not very mindful. Because when I turn of the analysis part, which is what I’ve used to survive in an unfamiliar world to me, I just know what he needs. There’s this body or soul sense inside me that tells me what to do. It’s only when my mind is screaming “stop whining!” or “I can’t do this!” that I start to freak out.
When I was examining that thought process, this morning, it crossed my mind that I think that way in an attempt to distance myself from Potamus. I don’t want to pick him up because I think “he needs to get used to doing things without me. I’m not always going to be around.” Talk about adoption issues coming to play in my interactions with him. This idea that I’m not going to be in his life, someday, sometime, I’m trying to protect him by stepping back (even just internally), but how much is that for his protection…or my own?
I’m often overwhelmed by the intensity of the bond and love I feel for him, that I almost wonder if I pull back to save…myself? That if I phrase it “someday I won’t be here for you,” to mean, “someday you will no longer be my baby,” and I’m not yet prepared for that reality to happen. Though, my rational mind knows that I will always be his mama, he will always be my son.
So this intuition, this deep knowing of what he needed in that moment last night, to help him fall asleep. Because it’s what I would have wanted. Or, rather, it’s what I would have needed or do need. Why I enjoy a massage touch with a specific pressure and why progression muscle relaxation and body scanning helps me calm my senses at the end of the day. I don’t always know, but when I do, it’s like this deep internal knowing that can’t be explained by words. It’s beyond thinking, if that makes any sense at all? He couldn’t calm the energy inside him, it was escaping and zinging all over and causing distress. When he was brought back into his body, feeling grounded, he was asleep within minutes.
My dreams have been intense lately, like last night’s adventures that were interupted by my own snoring. There had been flying, by me and others close to me, and there had been labor. Lots of babies being born and one friend in particular who somehow was giving birth naturally, though I know she had just had a C-section a few days ago. I was helping deliver her baby, in the dream, but I can’t quite sort out my role in the whole adventure, now that I’m awake. Because I had a camera and was taking pictures, but also had the feelings that I imagine a doula or midwife might feel. The dream was filled with other women given birth, so many babies, and also, flying. Did I mention the flying already? Flying dreams usually mean that my life is going well, or that I feel in control, which, in the light of day doesn’t seem to be that way at all.
I think the intensity of my dreams is influenced by all the reading I’ve been doing. While I’ve managed to read a few books for pleasure since Potamus has been born, it’s felt like A LONG time since I’ve really gotten into a book series, rather than sporadically picking up a book and reading it on a whim. But the other day I was at Costco and saw an intriguing book that seemed to fit my interest in things related to motherhood AND fit my interest in mystery/thrillers. The author, Sophie Hannah, has written several books and after I was 1/2 way through the book I bought from Costco, I had ordered a few more on Amazon, and have since bought a few via Kindle. Yeah, I’m on my 4th book…in A WEEK! Holy Moly! At this rate I’ll have read all her books in a month.
But, the characters she has created, and the plots that she has woven so masterfully together, leave me inspired and chilled and totally mesmerized. I love whodunit type novels, as it makes my brain work while I’m reading, trying all the while to figure out who the ‘bad guy’ is and why they’re acting the way they are. These books are written so well that the psychological aspect of the ‘why?’ keeps me guessing and it feels, at the end, like my mind has been sharpened. But in the midst, my heart and mind is racing, and I’ve found that I’m okay putting the book down halfway through, but once I pass the 75% mark, I definitely need to have time to finish the rest or my mind whirls and I can’t focus on things like…sleeping…
Before I went to bed last night, Boof and I laid next to each other and tried to re-connect. I’d been feeling shitty about how much I complain about his workload, but I know that he’s struggling with it, too. I know that quality time is one of my cheesy languages of love, and so not having him around causes me to get irritated. But I do see how hard he’s working and I want to stop nagging and being a crazy psycho about it all. I think some of my craziness has been due to my fear about trying to expand our family to another child. We talked frankly about our desire for another (hopefully daughter, but welcomed son, too) and how two is the max, how we don’t want a 3rd. But I talked about having enough patience for it all.
So I think the intensity of having several friends giving birth, paired with these well crafted psychological thriller books about mothers and crime, paired with my own wrestling around having another child, is causing my dreams to go to a whole other level.
Thank God for Google, because after I wrote that post yesterday my mind went “eep, I just self-disclosed to the ENTIRE internet (or all 90 of you followers) that I am batshit crazy sometimes and WHAT IF YOU CALL CPS ON ME?” Yeah, a tad melodramatic, but still, my mind wanders in that direction. Plus, what mom do you know shouts “hey, I get crazy angry when I’m sleep deprived,” in normal coffee-conversations?
Apparently, at least according to Google, there are lots of “sleep disorders” and that waking up angry and not remembering it is common in something called a “sleep arousal disorder” (which, in mom speak can be coined as “fucking tired, yo”) and typically happens when someone’s woken up prematurely during the first part of the night (yep!). Whoa, so I’m not the only one who’s had this issue? Yesssss! I came across sleep forums and Y!A questions and personal stories that sounded so similar to me two nights ago.
Phew.
And I guess, the answer is…get more sleep and don’t get woken up suddenly in the first hour of sleep at night (barring any medical emergencies or something like that). Hopefully Boof can be on board with that plan, right?
boof & monk-monk 