A Sad Ending

We were ecstatic when Kaylani learned to go from belly to back. Overjoyed when she went from back to belly. Thrilled when she went from down to sit. And happy (ran out of fancy synonyms) when she could go from sit to stand. But now, all of that just makes us sad.

Being back from vacation means Kaylani finally was in the comforts of her own room and her own crib again. It also meant that bedtime routine was back on, and we didn't have to worry about her crying at night, or putting her down in the pack and play. Instead, we could lay her down in her crib after we both said goodnight, and she would drift away into dreamland for 12 hours (hopefully). But the past 2 nights, Kaylani's been the saddest little baby in the world before bedtime, and she knows it. She almost got through us yesterday too.

After Mommy finished nursing, I went back into Kaylani's room to say goodnight. After 2 kisses from us, she gets put in her crib for the night. Usually she'll either stay asleep, or ideally she'll open her eyes, look at us, and then go back to sleep when we put our hand on her for a brief second. Last night, she looked at us, rolled over, and tried to climb out. Being firm sleep training parents, we put her back down, kissed her good night again (no easy task with the crib lowered all the way down), and left the room. This is when things get sad.

For the next 5 minutes, Kaylani cried. While that's sad, it's something we're used to at bedtime. But now, she just looks sad (through the video monitor). She rolls over onto her belly, crawls to the corner of the crib, and tries to stand up. 2 nights ago she tried to stand up and toppled over pretty badly. We of course went in to make sure she was okay, which she was except for a small red bump on her chin. Nothing too bad for 2 nights ago, but there were lasting effects. Instead of trying to stand up last night, she just sat there, in the corner of her crib, looking out at the door, and crying. Not wailing, but more like a whimpering, sad, cry, for 5 minutes.

When I went in after those 5 minutes, she still cried, but tried to stand up to see me. And when she would stand up, I would lay her back down, rub her belly (or her back when she rolled over), and try to get her to sleep. Each time, she would crawl back to her corner and try and stand up to get me to pick her up. Again, being the strict sleep training parents that we are, I would lay her back down and try again. After 2 minutes, I laid her down, said good night again, blew her a kiss, and walked out the door as she crawled back to her corner.

The next 5 minutes was more of the same. Kaylani sat in her corner, holding the crib, looking at the door, crying, with a slouched over defeated look to her. At the 9 minute mark, Mommy called me from downstairs (where she was watching the other monitor) to beg me to pick Kaylani up for a little bit. She thought "Kaylani just needed a little love and wants to be with her Daddy." As if Kaylani wasn't tugging on my heart strings enough, there was Mommy guilt tripping me into picking her up. And then, Mommy goes "See?? She fell down again!"

Kaylani didn't fall down again. What she did was lie down and fall asleep, in her corner. It happened right at the 10 minute mark, and before Daddy could give in and pick her up to give her a big hug and let her know she shouldn't be the saddest little monkey in her crib. It's about that time now tonight again, so here's to hoping she stays asleep, or closes her eyes after she sees us when we put her in her crib. I'm not sure I can handle 15 minutes of the saddest baby ever waiting for her Daddy to come rescue her from her crib.

Just 1 more hour...

Since we got Kaylani back to sleeping more than 3 hours on her own a few weeks ago, things have been okay. Not great, but okay. I know I shouldn't be complaining since she's been sleeping 8-9 hours straight every night (that part has been great), but its the mornings that are only okay.

Kaylani is usually in her crib and asleep by 8pm on a normal day. Add 9 hours to that and it means that Kaylani has been waking up at approximately 5am for the last couple of weeks. 5am is early. I don't care how you look at it, but 5am is EARLY. Even when I was pulling all nighters in college watching infomercials studying, 5am was still early. 3 or 4am was late, but 5am was early. Anyways, you get the point.

One thought was if she went to sleep a little later, then she would wake up a little later. That theory went down the drain when Kaylani went to bed at 9pm, and woke up at, yep, 5am. Then, instead of just being awake, she was awake, tired, and cranky because she only got 8 hours of sleep. And when Mommy and Daddy are up at 5am too, tired/cranky baby is not a great way to start the day.

Over the past 5 days or so, my body has started to adjust to waking up at 5am. I've even been awake enough to hear her first babbling sounds instead of her ear piercing screams that she lets out when she's bored of herself. But every day while changing her 10lb diaper and watching the sun come up, I ask her why she won't sleep for just 1 more hour.

The way I look at it, an hour isn't a lot to ask for. She doesn't even need to sleep during it. All she has to do is lay in her crib and talk to herself (quietly) until the clock hits 6am (or 7am, but I don't want to get greedy). Out of nowhere today, Kaylani listened. She started talking around 5am, and let out a few of her standard cries of "HEY! COME GET ME!" but then, she went silent. Mommy and I both picked up our heads to stare at the monitor after a few minutes to see if she was messing with us, but she was asleep again. Amazingly.

At 6:30am, I woke up...luckily. I hadn't set my alarm the night before because who needs an alarm when you have a rooster baby sleeping in the next room. I looked over and she was still sleeping. I woke Mommy up and asked her what she did to our baby, and she said nothing. Groggily I started getting ready for the day. I was all thrown off since my day had been starting with a baby cuddle, playtime, THEN my turn to get ready, but not today. I was dressed and ready to go, even caught up on sports, blogs, and tweets, and Kaylani still wasn't up.

At 7:30am, Kaylani finally woke up. 11.5 hours after she fell asleep, or 2.5 hours after her morning cry and normal wake up time. Luckily for me it was 10 minutes before I had to leave for a long day in NYC, New Brunswick (where I got my picture taken with Spike Lee after winning a James Burke Marketing Award for my work on AMBI), and then a Little League playoff game to see if we made it into the final round or not (we didn't) so I got to hold her for a few minutes. Maybe this is the start of her sleeping a little bit later each day now. Maybe we're about to get just a little more sleep each morning now. Or maybe this was a one time thing that is just going to confuse us going forward. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. After all, when Kaylani asks me for 1 more hour of sleep many years from now, I'll probably only let that happen every now and then too.

Repeating Sleep Training

Kaylani was sleeping so well for awhile. 10+ hours every night. No crying. Went down easy. Woke up refreshed and happy. And all of that meant Mommy and Daddy got 8+ hours of sleep, didn't cry, fell asleep real easy, and woke up refreshed and happy. Well that's gone. And we want it back. Now.

Kaylani's almost 7 months old and she's been a great sleeper pretty much the whole time so I really shouldn't complain that this latest stretch started last Saturday in Baltimore. But the fact that she's been a great sleeper is what makes times like this so very bad. It's like we're new parents again when this happens. We haven't adjusted to 2 hour naps at night because we haven't had to. I'm sure we'll adjust in a due time, but I'd rather not. We're going to fix this. Now.

Our intervention hasn't started before tonight because it's been a crazy week with the whole Baltimore trip, a short but intense work week, and then a weekend birthday party for Yeh Yeh (which by the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY YEH YEH!!) with Daddy's side of the family in town. All of that basically meant that when Kaylani cried at night, one of us went and picked her up to calm her down. And since she's learned to manipulate us by crying, she would wait for us to pick her up, then pass out immediately. It ends tonight.

I know I sound really mean right now, especially to those of you who don't believe in sleep training, but it has to happen. And because sleep training means that we let her cry it out for an entire night whether it's 20 minutes or 3 hours, I feel real mean doing it, but it's worked. Every time we've had to do this (which is twice), she's gone back to sleeping 10+ hours all by herself for at least a couple of weeks. So it has to be done. Tonight.

We may be rushing into this, but there's a reason it has to be tonight. Other than the fact that we're really dragging lately because of this lack of sleep, there's the fact that we have another trip coming up. In 3 weeks, we're headed to Cape Cod for 4 days for Tommy and Gretchen's wedding, which means we'll be sleeping away from home again. But more specifically, Cape Cod marks the first time Kaylani will go to sleep without us because Yin Yin is going to watch her while we're at the wedding. And if she's waking up every 2 hours without us, it's not going to be pretty for Yin Yin.

No matter how bad we're going to feel tonight as we sit in bed and listen to her cry while staring at her through the video monitor, hopefully we'll stay strong. We've made this decision together because it's going to work in the long run. It better work in the long run. Please let it work in the long run.

Right or wrong?

Last night was one of the more trying nights we've had with Kaylani. We thought we had put nights like that behind us when we survived sleep training 3 months ago, but we were wrong. Our first attempt at sleep training was nothing compared to what we went through last night. And we're hoping that was the last of it.

After surviving the cows during the day yesterday, Kaylani gave us all the signs that we were in for a good night. She nursed well, she burped well, and she was sleepy but awake when we put her down for bed. She even played by herself for 10 minutes before falling asleep all on her own around 8:30pm. So for awhile, Kaylani looked like she was back to her good sleeping habits.

But then 12:45am rolled around. We woke up to Kaylani crying, but we held off on doing anything. We had to break her of this crying for someone to get her habit she was getting into because she was just manipulating us. If she would just re-learn how to fall asleep on her own, we'd be okay going forward. After an hour, I went in to turn her around and calm her down, which didn't work. After two hours, we were on the verge of giving in but had to stay strong. Our pediatrician urged us to stay strong so she didn't learn that crying gets results.

After two and a half hours we were at our breaking point. Mommy had to get up and leave the room. She resorted to the computer to help distract her from running into Kaylani's room and picking her up. Daddy sat on the edge of the bed for awhile and stared at the video monitor while listening to her cry. 15 minutes later, or two hours and 45 minutes after Kaylani started crying, she fell silent. She finally fell asleep.

Mommy couldn't even come back to the room right away. She needed to calm down just a bit more before she could even think about sleeping. "Why did we have a baby if we're going to let her do that" was the only thing she could get out of her mouth before breaking down. "Because we're teaching her to sleep in the future" was the only answer I could give, and last night, even I wasn't convinced. It was a tough night, but we survived. Barely, but we survived.

Now many parents will probably tell us we were wrong to let her cry for so long. That we should run to her and comfort her because she needs our support and she's too young. Others will tell us that we did the right thing, and that it really will pay off in the future. Right now, we're not sure if we did the right thing or the wrong thing yet. We do know that she cried again tonight for an hour before finally falling asleep, but she fell asleep on her own, and that's what matters.

If she cries again in the middle of the night, I'm not sure what we'll do. I'm not even sure what we can handle at this point. We're just hoping that we don't have to make that decision again tonight. We're hoping that what we went through last night will prevent us from having to make that decision for a long time. We'll know what happened in the morning, and I sure hope that morning comes quickly because I won't have any answers to give otherwise.

Doctor Says

Today was Kaylani's 6 month checkup. Sure, she's not 6 months yet, but we had it anyways. Overall, the doctor said everything looked good,which is always a good sign. She now weighs 14lbs, which puts her in the 21st percentile. She's 27" tall, which is in the 35th percentile. Her head is 17" round, which is in the 26th percentile. What's all of that mean? It means she's a skinny little tall girl. At least that's what I took out of it.

Her height and weight measurements weren't what we went for (well, not the whole reason). We found a few other important things, like she has no signs of teeth yet and that she's developmentally on track with her rolling, feet grabbing/eating, grabbing in general, "standing", and sitting (as limited as it may be). But the 2 other things that the doctor said were what we really took away from the appointment.

The first was food. Since she's in the 21st percentile in weight, we got the go ahead to move to 3 solid feedings a day (in addition to 5 breastfeedings a day). Up until now, we've been giving her a 1/4 cup of oatmeal at lunch and then 2oz of vegetables at night. Well starting tomorrow, we'll be moving to a little less than a 1/4 cup of oatmeal at lunch, a 1/4 cup of oatmeal and veggies at lunch, and then 5oz of a different/new vegetable for dinner. It's going to be a race now to see if I can lose more weight than Kaylani can gain. It'll be close.

The other thing that the doctor told us was that we had her full permission to begin ferberizing Kaylani when she doesn't sleep. Sounds mean, but what that actually means is that we need to let her cry at night for however long it takes for her to get back to sleeping 10-12 hours straight through. Since she used to be able to do it and just hasn't been doing it lately, it means that she's capable of lasting 10-12 hours without nursing. The hard part will be seeing if we can do it. It's a battle of wills according to our doctor, and I'm not sure our wills are strong enough.

Letting her cry sounds easy enough, but when it's the middle of the night and she's crying, that means one of us has to stay up and make sure that she's actually okay and just crying for the sake of crying. Shutting off the monitor(s) sounds easy enough, but given how tired we are, we may just sleep through any type of cry and miss out on something important or urgent, which is not really an option.

The other otpion is for 1 of us to stay awake with her while she's crying. The problem with that is it means one of us will suffer through the next day. And it's really a coin flip to see if a tired Mommy home with Kaylani is worse than a tired Daddy in the office. Anyways, I guess we'll deal with that starting tomorrow because tonight doesn't count with Kaylani getting 2 shots today (which she did great at and only cried for a minute after the 2nd one). Stay tuned to see how this one turns out.

4:09am

When we sent out Kaylani's birth announcement via email, one of the emails we got back simply said "Congrats! And welcome to 4:09am (the time she was born) - it's a time you'll grow very familiar with." I hadn't really grown familiar with 4:09am, or really anytime in the early morning yet. Sure, I had paid it a visit every now and then, but nothing that I would label as familarity. Until a few days ago that is.

Lately, she's been falling asleep just fine on her own at night, so that part of sleep training has worked. But the frustrating part is that she's been waking up every 3 hours on most nights, and only sleeps 6 hours at a time as the exception. We'd much rather have it work the other way like it used to, but there's nothing we can really do about it right now (although we're sure gonna try!)

The funny thing (not funny "haha", but funny "awww, that's sad") about Kaylani waking up after 3 hours is that it's usually only an hour after we've gone to sleep, or more specifically, an hour after Daddy has fallen asleep (it takes Mommy much longer to fall asleep). Also, Kaylani's cry after 3 hours of sleep isn't a full cry. It's more like a staggered cry that drags out over a long period of time. It goes something like "Wah..........wah......wahhh......wah..............wah"

So when Mommy has just about fallen asleep for the first time, she has to get up and calm Kaylani down or actually nurse her if she looks hungry or inconsoleable. Then, after another 2 to 3 hours, this all happens again. It's usually not until the 2nd or 3rd time before Daddy gets moving (typically between 3 and 5am). And whenever Daddy does finally decide to get his butt out of bed, it's like Kaylani knows it because she starts to play games.

Daddy will be halfway out of bed and towards the door when Kaylani stops crying. Conveniently, halfway happens to be right in front of the video monitor, so he can then stare at Kaylani who seems to be peacefully sleeping. Off comes the robe, and back into bed. And without fail, as soon as Daddy pulls the covers up over him, Kaylani cries again. Back out of bed, robe back on, and head towards the door again. And of course, silence...again.

This goes on for about 2 to 3 trips out of bed, or 10 minutes, which seems more like an hour when its early in the morning. But when she actually cries, Daddy goes to calm her, pick her up, rock her, bounce her, or whatever her until she falls asleep. Then, just to make sure she stays asleep and doesn't make a random cry to wake Mommy up, Daddy will head to his computer for a little bit to check his mail, read some sports, or play around on Facebook. And on days like today, by the time he's sure Kaylani is asleep, it's 5:45 or 6am, which is too close to the time he normally gets up to head back to bed.

I actually don't mind being up at 4am and staying up. Of course I'd rather be sleeping, but if I'm out of bed either with Kaylani or on my computer in the office, it means that Mommy gets a few hours of uninterrupted sleep which is important since she's the one that holds this family together. So if starting my day 3 hours early is what it takes, then that's what it will take. At least that's what it'll take until we figure out how to get her to sleep for 6-8 hours again. That's tonight's mission, which starts now (or more likely 3 hours from now).

Anyways, Kaylani's about to go into bed (late night for her!) and so is Daddy so that he can take the first shift and try something new with her. I'll let you know how our new plan is working in a few days, but in the meantime, here are pictures from the last 3 days. Enjoy!

Let Her Be

For the last 3 months we babied our baby. Sounds kinda like an obvious thing to do to a baby, but we over did it when it came to bedtime. Our typical routine would be to nurse her, and then bounce her, sway her, or whatever her so she would almost fall deep asleep in our arms. And then at the last minute (sometimes after the last minute when she was really fussy), we would put her in her crib and hold her there until we were confident she was asleep before we snuck out.

On good nights, she would be so sleepy after nursing that she would go happily into her crib and fall asleep after a quick bounce or two. On bad nights, we would bounce and sway her for up to an hour (alternating turns of course). The unpredictability that bedtime brought, as well as the uncomfortableness on bad nights, led us to try "sleep training" now that Kaylani is 3 months old. And we figured if she could learn to roll over, she could learn to sleep on her own.

There are many different methods of sleep training, and after reading through a few of them, we decided on the "gradually leaving" technique. The premise of this technique is to put her down (you're small!) right away, say goodnight, and then leave the room without picking her up or doing anything. On the first night, if she's still crying after 5 minutes, go back in, calm her down without picking her up, say goodnight, and then leave the room again. After 5 to 10 more minutes, do the same thing. Then, you increase the time by 5 minutes every day. It also says that this technique could take awhile to work, but we gave it a shot anyways.

So last night, Mommy put her down (you smell like a baby!), said goodnight, and left the room. After 5 painful minutes of hearing his little girl cry (not a full out cry, but more like a whine/whimper), Daddy went in, put a reassuring hand on her chest, kissed her on the forehead, said goodnight, then left. The next 5 minutes were even more painful then the first. I sat on the edge of my bed staring towards her room, and listened to her while trying to restrain myself from going in there to pick her up. It was tough, but I sat there on that bed for 6 whole minutes (Mommy joined me halfway through).

After 6 minutes, there was silence. Another minute went by and there was a trace of a whimper, but not a strong one. Few more minutes went by and there was nothing. Only the sounds of Daddy and Mommy sitting on the edge of the bed breathing quietly together could be heard. 10 minutes had passed since Daddy last went in there and there was only silence coming from Kaylani's room. Hooray!

Of course, the first thing Daddy wanted to do was go in and check on her to make sure everything was alright, but he didn't out of fear that maybe she was awake and staring at the door wondering why her parents had abandoned her. Mommy did take a peek in her room an hour later, and she was sleeping. She didn't even look like she was sad, so that was a relief. I completely expected her to be asleep with a big ol' frown on her face. Luckily, that was not the case.

So that was "sleep training" day 1. Tonight will be day 2, although Mommy tried it this afternoon with successful results again at nap time, so maybe this won't be as bad as we thought. Well it's about time for us to give it a try, so while she's sleeping (or staring at the door wondering why her parents abandoned her), you can look at a few pictures from the last 3 days. Or, even better, you can check out this video of Kaylani rolling over! Mommy got it on tape today and Daddy even got to see it live! For us though, it's now time to just let her be.