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Newspaper Article: "Sleep Success" By now you're amazed at my daring midweek seduction while the kids are in the house! But while I am trying to get a certain cute guy into bed, it's not my husband (who won't be home for hours) but my 10-month-old, Lucas, whose bedtime routine becomes more elaborate almost nightly. This evening unfolds like every other has over the past several months, ever since Lukey got wise to the fact that life goes on after the lights go out. Putting him to bed has become, if you will, a nightmare: We start by nursing in the rocker that's been moved to my bedroom, to create some space in the little room that Lucas and Eliza share. He's recently developed a unique nursing style, feeling my face with Helen Keller-like zeal, poking a finger inside my nose, squeezing my pinkie. It drives me nuts but seems to help him relax. But then Eliza, impatient for some Mommy time, breaks the restraining order and stomps upstairs. I send her away with a stage-whispered promise to read an extra bedtime story if she'll just please stay away until the baby's asleep. Too late: Lucas has snapped out of his near slumber. I take him into his room, shut the door, restart Norah, and we dance. And dance. And dance. At last, Lukey's cheek relaxes against my shoulder. He's out! Holding him tight to my chest, I jackknife over the crib rail and lay him down, keeping a hand on his body until I'm sure he's going to stay asleep. After raising the side of the crib, all I have to do is travel the ten or so feet between it and the door, backing out on tiptoe, circling around the creaks in the 74-year-old hardwood floor. Holding my breath, I open the door a crack and squeeze through — just as the dog starts barking at some imaginary intruder. Lucas wakes up and begins to wail. I return to the crib to rub his back. He calms down, but the second I stop, he pops up like a jack-in-the-box and commences screaming. I pat and stroke and caress his forehead, his back, his rump — desperately looking for his "off" switch, the spot that will make him relax and go to sleep. By 8:00, an hour and ten minutes after I started to put him to bed, he's finally snoozing. 2. Desperate Measures I'm a little embarrassed, having already shepherded two babies through the land of Nod, to find myself so lost with baby number three. Fortunately, my parental pride doesn't prevent me from realizing that I need professional help. Enter Kim West, a clinical social worker in Annapolis, Maryland, who specializes in helping weary parents get their kids to sleep. West, a mom of two young daughters, comes by her expertise honestly: While pregnant with her first child ten years ago, she heard so many stories about the perils of parental sleep deprivation that she read all she could and spoke to countless experts on the topic so that she could try to avoid it. She had her first daughter sleeping through the night at 8 weeks, her second at 10. West works with out-of-town clients by phone (to contact her, visit www.sleeplady.com). First, she has me fill out a questionnaire. She wants to know everything from what and when Lucas eats and how much he weighs to what his temperament is. Then she asks for a detailed outline of a typical day and night with Lucas, including all that we — meaning my husband, Michael, and our sitter, Marilen — do to try to get him to sleep. She'll use this information to both "diagnose" my problem and tailor a plan for us. Our first phone interview lasts an hour and a half. During it, West clears up one of the great conundrums of parenting: why kids seem to be more wired the less shut-eye they get. If a child doesn't go to sleep at the physiologically appointed time, his brain will say, "Fine, stay up then," and secrete a chemical called cortisol to help keep him awake. As a result, "it takes him longer to go to sleep when you finally get him to bed, and thanks to residual cortisol in his brain, he'll wake up earlier than usual the next day, be overtired, and have trouble napping. It's a downward spiral. Sleep deprivation is cumulative — the less you sleep, the less you sleep," says West. On to Lucas: Why can't I get him to sleep, or back to sleeping through the night? The answer is simple: I'm not supposed to be getting Lucas to go to sleep — he should be putting himself to sleep. All that nursing and rocking and back rubbing is not only useless, it's also detrimental. West tells me that putting yourself to sleep is a learned skill. 3. Hatching A Plan • sleep 11 hours each night. If he wakes up, he should be able to get back to sleep on his own. • take a morning and an afternoon nap, catching daytime zzz's in his crib — not his car seat or stroller (which is pretty routine on weekends, when we're trying to cram a week's worth of errands into two days). Each nap should ideally last an hour to an hour and a half. • be drowsy but awake when he's put down, fall asleep on his own, and if he wakes up during the night, be able to drift back off without help. • not get out of his crib before 6 a.m. To make this happen, says West, Lucas needs: • a room of his own. Because Eliza tends to wake up when Lucas does, and Lucas sometimes wakes up when Eliza goes to bed, West asks whether it would be possible for them to sleep in different rooms. We'd been planning to separate the kids anyway, moving Will to the third floor and putting Eliza in his room on the second. Until we can get the rooms painted and the kids' belongings packed up, we decide to move Eliza's twin bed into our bedroom. (If we hadn't had an extra bedroom, West would've had us move Eliza out temporarily, until Lucas was consistently snoozing through the night, and then teach her good "sleep manners" — no talking to or playing with the baby.) Lucas's room also needs to be equipped with room-darkening shades for optimal sleeping conditions during the day. And, finally, he needs insulation from household noises: West suggests plugging in a white-noise machine or a fan. • one true lovey — a blanket, doll, or stuffed toy to caress in order to make the transition to sleeptime. West explains that Lucas probably hasn't latched onto a security object himself because he always has Mommy to hang on to. How to play matchmaker? Have an intended object of Lukey's affection on hand while nursing (something soft and safe) and encourage him to squeeze it instead of me. Marilen's to do the same when she gives him a bottle, and everyone's to help by having it around all the time, giving it and Lukey a kiss if he falls down, for example. "You give it life, and he'll start to get it," West says. • a consistent routine that will cue his brain that it's time to go to bed. Instead of picking from a smorgasbord of sleep-inducing tactics, Michael, Marilen, and I all need to do the same series of things before every nap and at bedtime. West instructs me to move the rocker back into Lucas's room so that the entire nursing and bedtime routine takes place in one spot. I can add board books, but I need to be consistent with the order in which we read and feed before Lucas hits the hay. Most important: I cannot let him fall asleep while nursing; if he starts to drift off, it's time to put him down. West's answer to the protracted bedtime crying is surprisingly simple and reassuringly humane. (I know plenty of parents have had success with letting their babies cry it out at night, but I don't have the stomach for it.) Any mom should be able to follow these steps: • Days 1 through 3: After reading and nursing, I'm to put Lucas in his crib and sit right next to it while he cries for however long it takes him to go to sleep. I can talk to him and pat him through the slats, but I can't pick him up. • Days 4 through 6: I'll move my chair halfway between the crib and the door and reassure him verbally from there. • Days 7 and 8: I'll sit right by the door and talk to him. • Day 9: By now, I should be able to leave the room as soon as I put him in the crib. To keep Eliza from interrupting, West suggests I "hire"
Will to entertain her until my husband gets home or Lukey conks
out, whichever comes first. The plan is so simple that West and
I agree I can get started that very night, a Friday, even though
I can't get all the elements in place (the shades, for example).
4. Asleep At Last West signs off on a 7 p.m. bedtime for Lucas, with an ETA in Dreamland of around 7:30. At the appointed hour, I announce that it's time to go night-night, pick him up, and climb the stairs to his room. Everything goes smoothly at first: We sit and "read" a few books, then I turn on Norah Jones and we nurse. (A note about music: West doesn't advocate it, as some kids get so used to it that they won't be able to sleep without it. But I like it as a bedtime signal and have chosen a CD that I find relaxing too, so we compromise and only let it play through once. And it doesn't get turned on if Lucas wakes up in the middle of the night or during a nap.) I try redirecting Lukey's roaming hand from my nose to a meltingly soft stuffed zebra, but he keeps pushing it away and grabbing my fingers. At 7:15, he finishes his snack and I lay him down in his crib along with the rejected animal — and he promptly pops up and starts screaming. I pat him through the crib slats and talk to him reassuringly, but he screams and screams. It's tough, but since I'm not actually leaving him, I can take it. He lies down once for a few seconds, thinks better of it, stands back up. He keeps crying, I keep talking — and then, miraculously, he lies down and closes his eyes. It's pitch-black in the room, but I hear his breathing change and I know he's out. It's 7:27. The next night, Lucas goes into the crib at 7:10, screeches for 10 minutes, and spends the next 20 moving around and getting comfortable, but without crying. On night number three, he has no patience for books, so I put him down at 7:01. He spends half an hour moving around his crib, but he's asleep at 7:36. By the following Saturday night, I've moved from cribside to the door; Lukey's fallen in love with Cow-Cow, an adorable stuffed bovine that was Eliza's; and both Michael and Marilen have mastered the art of putting Lucas to bed. I've been talking to or e-mailing with West almost daily, giving her reports of Lucas's progress. West offers praise, encouragement, and refinements to the routine. When one morning Lucas sleeps for nearly two hours, West advises me to wake him after an hour and a half if it happens again, "to preserve his afternoon nap." I can't say there haven't been glitches, though: Most notably, on the fifth night, Lucas woke up at around 3 a.m. and cried so pitifully that I was aching to hold him. After half an hour, Michael took over patting and talking to him. (Later West reassures me that it would've been okay to pick him up; we're still in the early stages of reteaching him, and the point isn't to torture either of us.) I feel ready to take the Night Number Nine Challenge and leave Lucas's room as soon as I put him in his crib. Even he seems eager to try this big step, looking so sleepy by 6:50 that I go ahead and bring him upstairs. He lets me flip through a few books, but by 7:02 it's clear he's ready to move on. Into his crib he goes with Cow-Cow — no resistance, no crying! I kiss him goodnight, leave, go across the hall to my bedroom to read. Lucas is so quiet that I actually forget about him until 7:30. I creep into his room to find him fast asleep. Fast-forward to the present: Lucas is now 18 months old and has been going to bed just as easily every night since then — no kidding. Eliza's cozy in her new pink bedroom, and we're now a family that plans outings around naptime so that Lucas gets two solid siestas per day. Most amazing, he's maintained his sleep habits during and despite a number of family trips, sleeping in the car, in a crib at my mom's house, and in a portable crib at hotels. He recently broke up with Cow-Cow and now loves his floppy Blue Dog, but no matter: Whomever he sleeps with, or where or when, bedtime for little Lucas is no longer a nightmare 4. Asleep At Last West signs off on a 7 p.m. bedtime for Lucas, with an ETA in Dreamland of around 7:30. At the appointed hour, I announce that it's time to go night-night, pick him up, and climb the stairs to his room. Everything goes smoothly at first: We sit and "read" a few books, then I turn on Norah Jones and we nurse. (A note about music: West doesn't advocate it, as some kids get so used to it that they won't be able to sleep without it. But I like it as a bedtime signal and have chosen a CD that I find relaxing too, so we compromise and only let it play through once. And it doesn't get turned on if Lucas wakes up in the middle of the night or during a nap.) I try redirecting Lukey's roaming hand from my nose to a meltingly soft stuffed zebra, but he keeps pushing it away and grabbing my fingers. At 7:15, he finishes his snack and I lay him down in his crib along with the rejected animal — and he promptly pops up and starts screaming. I pat him through the crib slats and talk to him reassuringly, but he screams and screams. It's tough, but since I'm not actually leaving him, I can take it. He lies down once for a few seconds, thinks better of it, stands back up. He keeps crying, I keep talking — and then, miraculously, he lies down and closes his eyes. It's pitch-black in the room, but I hear his breathing change and I know he's out. It's 7:27. The next night, Lucas goes into the crib at 7:10, screeches for 10 minutes, and spends the next 20 moving around and getting comfortable, but without crying. On night number three, he has no patience for books, so I put him down at 7:01. He spends half an hour moving around his crib, but he's asleep at 7:36. By the following Saturday night, I've moved from cribside to the door; Lukey's fallen in love with Cow-Cow, an adorable stuffed bovine that was Eliza's; and both Michael and Marilen have mastered the art of putting Lucas to bed. I've been talking to or e-mailing with West almost daily, giving her reports of Lucas's progress. West offers praise, encouragement, and refinements to the routine. When one morning Lucas sleeps for nearly two hours, West advises me to wake him after an hour and a half if it happens again, "to preserve his afternoon nap." I can't say there haven't been glitches, though: Most notably, on the fifth night, Lucas woke up at around 3 a.m. and cried so pitifully that I was aching to hold him. After half an hour, Michael took over patting and talking to him. (Later West reassures me that it would've been okay to pick him up; we're still in the early stages of reteaching him, and the point isn't to torture either of us.) I feel ready to take the Night Number Nine Challenge and leave Lucas's room as soon as I put him in his crib. Even he seems eager to try this big step, looking so sleepy by 6:50 that I go ahead and bring him upstairs. He lets me flip through a few books, but by 7:02 it's clear he's ready to move on. Into his crib he goes with Cow-Cow — no resistance, no crying! I kiss him goodnight, leave, go across the hall to my bedroom to read. Lucas is so quiet that I actually forget about him until 7:30. I creep into his room to find him fast asleep. Fast-forward to the present: Lucas is now 18 months old and has been going to bed just as easily every night since then — no kidding. Eliza's cozy in her new pink bedroom, and we're now a family that plans outings around naptime so that Lucas gets two solid siestas per day. Most amazing, he's maintained his sleep habits during and despite a number of family trips, sleeping in the car, in a crib at my mom's house, and in a portable crib at hotels. He recently broke up with Cow-Cow and now loves his floppy Blue Dog, but no matter: Whomever he sleeps with, or where or when, bedtime for little Lucas is no longer a nightmare — t's a Mommy-dream come true.
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