How Wise Are You?

Chris and I consider ourselves lucky that Madelyn has been such a great baby. Last week she started getting into a better sleep routine. Of course, I use the word “routine” quite loosely, but she was showing some signs of improvement…until a few nights ago. For whatever reason, she decided she just didn’t want to sleep...anywhere, anytime. This continued for 24 hours, and we really thought we were going to go crazy. We spent those 24 hours waking with her every 30-45 minutes, trying desperately to get her back to sleep. She wanted nothing to do with it…not even during the day, which until this point was her very favorite time to sleep! Honestly, as much as we needed sleep, we were worried that she needed it more. She was still eating like a champ, but just didn’t want to rest.

Chris recently brought home a new book for me to read (why is it by the way that I must always do the reading?). Someone told him this book described the magical sleep cure. I started reading the book several days before Madelyn decided to stop sleeping more than 30 minutes at a time, but unfortunately, I fell asleep every time I tried to get a chapter in…this should have been warning number one. I probably should have reflected on this fact before going any further. Hind sight would have told me to just read it aloud to Madelyn. Since it put me to sleep, perhaps it would have done the same for her. ;)

To which book am I referring? It is titled On Becoming Baby Wise. Who would have thought that two highly intelligent people needed to read a book on “becoming” wise? Needless to say, we read the book (yes, I finally made it through, summarizing each chapter for Chris), and then, out of desperation, we tried its methodology. In a nutshell, this book suggests confining your baby and yourselves to a pretty strict routine with eating and sleeping, and allowing your baby to cry herself to sleep, something we hadn’t tried yet. The routine of eating was already in place. God forbid Madelyn miss a meal. ;) She has done quite well in that department, but the sleep routine was less than perfect (although we both agreed that she was still very young to have mastered it yet). The book also suggests that babies need to learn to fall asleep on their own, without any “props” (ie. rocking, bouncing, blankies, etc.) Even though rocking Madelyn to sleep was one of my favorite parts of the day, and we both felt like she was very young to try this, we decided to give it a go in hopes that she would get some quality rest.

In the book, it states that most babies will cry anywhere from 10-45 minutes until they fall asleep. Apparently, ours is not the “average” baby because she cried all night. Yes. All night. And we let her, with the exception of going in every 15-20 minutes to reassure her we hadn’t abandoned her (another strategy from the book). I must say this technique caused more lack of sleep, not to mention stress, then what we had experienced in the previous days. However, we continued this practice for 24 hours.

Yesterday, we kept to the routine. We planned a trip to our favorite store, Costco, and tried to coordinate it around her “schedule.” This actually worked well. She was due to eat around 10 AM so we planned to feed her and then make our way to the store. She slept gloriously in the car and in Costco, getting almost 2 hours of sleep. When we got home, she was ready to eat again. It was perfect. While at Costco, we picked up a couple movies hoping we’d somehow figure out how to watch them. ;)

Later in the evening, we put a movie in (Dan in Real Life---good flick, by the way) just as I started to feed Madelyn. Once she was finished eating, she soon fell asleep (a big no-no according to Baby Wise…never sleep after eating). I put a blanket on the couch and laid her down in between me and Chris. She slept there for almost the entire movie. I did move her to the bouncy seat at one point to make room for the popcorn bowl. ;) Anyway…it was when I laid her to sleep on the couch that I looked at Chris for approval, and he smiled, saying, “I’m glad we are on the same page.” At that moment we realized we were actually doing a pretty good job without following the stringent guidelines of a book. We both admitted that parenting is a hard job, but one that you figure out as you go. Not sleeping in a crib all the time, and sometimes eating a half hour later then expected is just fine. We are confident in our abilities to make good decisions and will be adding this book to our Good Will pile. :)

Madelyn's Opinion of Baby Wise