Sleep Problems

Our baby was sleep deprived. This is what we tried:
1.       90 minute sleep cycle. FAIL
2.       4:30 naps daily. Napping at the same time every day. FAIL
3.       8:00-8:00 bed time, naps at 10:00 & 2:00. FAIL
4.       6:00 bed time. SUCCESS!

The main problem with our baby right now is sleep deprivation. This started at about ten months of age, maybe a little sooner, and we are still battling it. I thought it started at about the time we travelled to California (which really messed up his schedule) but the fact that he learned to crawl right before the trip might have had something to do with it. I read that once a baby learns a new skill, like crawling or standing or walking, he doesn't sleep as well. And sure enough, after a few months of joyously sleeping through the night, he was up again, sometimes twice, in the middle of the night. So I talked to some friends who referred some books. 

The first book was The 90 minute sleep book. The gist of the book is that babies are on a 90 minute cycle in which they go from alert to sleepy. So if you pay attention to when they wake up, 90 minutes (or 3 hours, or 4 1/2 hours) later they are in their sleepy phase. There is about a 15 minute window in which it is easier to get the child to fall asleep. Other new parents I have talked to have said that the 90 minute method worked for awhile and then it didn't. This could be because young babies (the first few months) nap more often and so will fall asleep every 90 minutes. Older babies don't need to nap quite as much, so they get sleepy after 2 or 3 sleep schedules. For my 10 month old, it was 4 1/2 hours, or 3 sleep cycles before he was sleepy again. The other thing that makes it difficult, is if the baby is sleeping in their crib, or anywhere but in your arms, it's hard to know the exact moment they woke up, unless they always wake up crying. 

The second thing I took from the book is how to know that your baby is sleep deprived. There are several things, one of which is waking up crying rather than happy. Also, they wake up easier (noise, light affect them), they sleep lighter, they don't nap as long, they fight sleep, etc. Every one of the symptoms mentioned described our baby at 10 months. And so we knew he was sleep deprived. And we knew to try to watch the clock to pay attention to the 90 minute cycles. But although it might be "easier" to get the baby to sleep after 90 minutes, it doesn't mean you will be successful at it, especially if the baby is sleep deprived and has the symptom of fighting sleep! As you can see from the symptoms above, a sleep deprived baby has difficulty getting to sleep and staying asleep. It takes some serious patience and frustration from the parents. And library books!

The second book was Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. Other than the fact that it is written for the stay-at-home mom and the busily working father (seriously, what century is this?!) it has some good points. In fact, I read a mother's story in it that sounded exactly like our baby- down to the times he was falling asleep and the method in which we used to get him to sleep. There were also plenty of stories in there with the same BS: "We tried this for three days and it worked!" "After just a few minutes he was asleep!" which I read while listening to my baby cry and cry in the next room after a week of the same trial and no success. Which made me want to punch the people reporting their stories. But punching a book would be stupid.

In an effort for him to get more sleep, I tried everything I could to get him to take a 4:30 nap. (We shucked the 90 minute crap and decided that sleeping at the same time every day was the key to getting him to sleep easier).

The solution, repeated over and over throughout the book, is earlier bed time. We had been putting our son to sleep around 8:30-9:00 and the book says 7:00 is a good bed time. In order to do that, the book says he shouldn't be going down for a nap after 3:00. 

Okay! Once again, new plan. No more 90 minute cycles. No more 4:30 naps. 

• Day 1: he's super fussy, but he will not nap, so no problem! Fast forward an hour and he's sitting in    his high chair waiting for his food to be prepared, and he falls asleep. Well, no dinner tonight but at least he's getting an earlier bed time!
• Day 2: He falls asleep at 4:15 and he is OUT. Exhausted. Good nap.
• Day 3: He falls asleep at 4:30 and sleeps, in his crib, for an hour. So, basically as soon as we change up the schedule, he starts to nap at 4:30? Maybe he's just exhausted because he only sleeps in the morning at the babysitter's.  

Okay! New plan. The book suggests (over and over) to put an 11 month old baby to bed at 7:00 pm, wake them up at 7:00 am, and put them down for naps at 9:00 am and 1:00 pm. It's supposed to work with the baby's biological clock. But it doesn't work for our schedules. So we decided to shift it an hour and have him sleep from 8:00-8:00 and take naps at 10:00 and 2:00. He already naps at 10:00 every day. The 2:00 one will be the difficult one to establish, and he is at the babysitter's at 2:00 for 4 days a week.

The babysitter does not let him cry himself to sleep. Therefore, some days he goes without a nap while he's there. This has been a problem, but if they only thing we ever complain about is the fact that they don't let him cry, we should probably not complain too much. 

So, the shifted biological clock plan didn't work either. Seems you can't screw with a baby's biological clock. We found after trying different bedtimes that he falls asleep pretty well around 6:00 every night. At first, he would wake up at 4:30 consistently. And not go back to sleep. Major sleep deprivation for us! So daddy insisted that we let him cry in his crib between 4:30-5:30 until he got used to sleeping until 5:30. It was hard. But after a few days, he was sleeping until 5:30! Success? No, he then began the habit of pooping around 4:30 each morning- the one thing he could do that would keep him from laying in his crib for an extra hour! So we would get up, change the poopy diaper and put him back in the crib where he slept until about 5:45. 

He hasn't been napping as well as we would like him to, but the change in his bed time has allowed him to get at least 11 hours of sleep overnight, and he seems to be much less fussy and less clumsy because of it. My new advice to friends with babies: earlier bed times! Just try it!

Sleep problems seem to be common among babies. And once again, like all things baby, there are dozens of books out there with dozens of suggestions, some of them contradicting each other! They say "find out what works best for your baby". What works best is adequate sleep. How do we get there? After over a month of exhaustion (baby sleep deprivation=parent sleep deprivation) try everything even if it doesn't work with your schedule. Like crazy early bedtimes!

Fast forward a few months: Bed time is around 6:00. He is absolutely exhausted by then. If he skips his afternoon nap then he will be in bed around 5:30. He was sleeping until about 5:45 and then when daylight savings happened, he started sleeping until 6:30 am. That would make sense except we fell back, so that hour moved in the opposite direction. He wakes up and plays and only starts to cry a little after he's been playing in the crib for awhile. We still struggle with him getting decent naps, but at least he is no longer suffering from sleep deprivation.