Sleep "Training"

We have discovered many new things as parents, some comical, some depressing, and some just outright nonsensical. Both of us love sleep. If you were to present us with a Vegas style buffet and a really comfortable bed, there would be no contest. The perfect weekend used to be a fun-filled Saturday followed by a good party that evening followed by the inevitable hangover on Sunday and a day of lounging in bed. There would of course be much sleeping in and napping throughout said days. So it came as an outright shock that we would give birth to a baby that seems downright offended by the idea of sleep.

It used to be funny when we were pregnant and she would rumble around at all hours of the day, giving a very accurate impression of an earthquake in the belly. It was less amusing when she was born and decided that life was far more interesting than sleep, even at the age of 1 week when her motor skills consisted of kicking her foot in and out or at 3 months when she practiced rolling over (and then complained about being on her stomach) or at 6 months when she rocked back and forth to prepare for crawling, etc. A hamster in its wheel had nothing up on our baby.

So like all sleep-obsessed parents, we fell into the usual traps: pacifier, swaddling, rocking, and holding. We had read "The Happiest Baby on the Block" and the "No Cry Sleep Solution" like any self-respecting hippy-liberal-treehugger, and thanks to all of that wonderful advice, our baby was swaddled and pacified and rocked for months while cosleeping for the hour at a time that she deemed necessary for sleep. These crutches, and our unwillingness to let her cry, resulted in a baby that didn't and couldn't sleep through the night on her own until she turned 1.

That was the day her father had had enough (luckily he's made of far sterner stuff than I, coming from a brutal, war-hardened place like England . . . ). He popped her in her crib, kissed her goodnight, told her he loved her, and then closed the door. And didn't go back in until morning. The first night, she cried for almost four hours nonstop, and then fell into an exhausted sleep. The second night, she cried for 45 minutes, and the third night 30 minutes. It was torturous, I would hate to relive it, but after three days of crying, she slept. And she has slept ever since.

There was the one anxiety-inducing day a few months back when we realized during an enforced nap, when she was not in her sleepsac that she was capable of climbing out of the crib. One moment she was complaining about her nap, the next she was over the rails, across the room, up on her rocker and sitting there looking petulant and unrepentant when we raced in. So we learned many things that day: (1) she can't be left in her crib without her sleepsac (custom made on Etsy because kiddopotamus sizes are too small for a toddler!), (2) she knows how to manipulate the zipper on her sleepsac so now she goes in with the zip up the back, and (3) she will only sleep if given no other option.

And then yesterday at 21 months old, she spiked a fever of 105 and was miserable. So we regressed to our namby-pamby ways and cuddled her and nursed her and gave her tylennol and decided she could fall asleep in our arms again until she drifted off. Well, she didn't drift off. She doesn't "just" drift off. So eventually, she was kissed and cuddled and told she was loved and then placed in her crib and left alone. After the requisite 30-second yelps of complaint, she was fast asleep. The same thing occurred again at midnight when the tylennol wore off and she needed another dose. So for all of the cynics who believe poor sleeping may be a phase, an age-related issue, our baby at least seems to defy such definitions. So we continue to abandon our baby, night after night, and she continues to complain for the typical minute, and then all is quiet. It's not what every parents dreams of, but I'm no longer losing sleep over it.