Sleep Camp: Update

Training Routine

Here’s a brief outline of what I started doing to help Elisha develop a regular nap routine as well as training him to fall asleep independently:

• Off to Bed 1.5 hours after being awake, regardless of whether he is tired
• Side-Coaching: This includes explaining to him what he is feeling, why he needs to rest. A sample script : “I know you’re tired. It’s alright to be tired. There’s no need to cry.You just need to close your eyes. You’re crying because being tired is not a good feeling. I understand. Just close your eyes, relax and drift to dreamland. You will wake up with more energy. We will play and learn together when you wake. “
• Play white noise and a rattle
• Minimal carrying, rocking and patting
• Encouraging him to listen to his body cues e.g. “You’re yawning because you are tired. Your brain needs to rest.”
• If he cries badly, I pick him up and give him a tight 8-second hug him and affirm his ability in learning to fall asleep.

Progress Update

I am so proud of how far Elisha has grown in the area of sleep! Here’s why:

• 4 day naps established: Elisha took 3 days to adapt to this schedule.  Each nap lasts 45 minutes on average. They tend to be 15 to 30 minutes longer if we’re out for a walk.

• Less Tears When Tired: He hardly cries now when he is tired and needs to sleep. At today’s late afternoon nap, he cried for a mere 30 seconds. I picked him up for a hug, and he cried for another 15 minutes. When his eyelids began to droop, I laid him back onto his bed, and he soon fell aslep.

• Less dependence on being carried or rocked or patted: At this evening’s bedtime, he just stared dreamily at his teddy mobile before drifting off to dreamland. I didn’t have to carry or pat him. I didn’t hold his hands either.  He woke up a little after but that I think is because I turned him onto his tummy prematurely.

What’s Worked

• The Use of Affirming Sentences: I believe using positives like ‘ You are a gentle and considerate baby. You like to sleep.’ helps influence his behaviour more effectively than using ‘Don’t’ s and ‘No’s.
  
• Power of the 8-second Hug: This helps to calm and settle him quickly. I just hold him really tight and tell him how much I love him, and how proud I am of him learning to fall asleep independently.
  

Reflections

When I saw Elisha smiling in his sleep as he was entering his sleep cycle, I was so glad I didn’t continue with the ‘Cry-It-Out’ method on him. I think the methods I’m trying out with him are more gentle and suited for his temperament. I’m even tempted to conclude that CIO is an unnecessary alternative in sleep training because there can be gentler means. I’m even thinking that the ‘No-Tears’ method does not wear the parent thin and create a demand-monster out of our children as its critics have stated.

Of course, every method has its supporters and detractors. Ultimately, it is the parents’ individual decision to choose one that best suits their parenting style and children.For me, I’m sticking to methods that are gentle on the spirit of both parent and child.

Little Rapper

Elisha doing the ‘Hip, Hop, Hooray!’ when he turned a month old.

(This set was taken on 19 October, 2008.)

A Few of My Favourite Shots

My little prince, how you have grown!

I’m Okay, Mama!

After crying for several minutes, Elisha finally fell asleep. He seemed to be saying, “I’m fine, Mama. Don’t worry about me! I’m a-okay!”.

Sleep Camp

Elisha has been put on a more intentional nap and sleep routine for the past three days. As he comes into his 4th month, I decided it was time to start helping him learn to fall asleep independently. I was also a little concerned about him not getting enough rest in the day. Now, he goes to his cot every 1.5 hours after he wakes, regardless of whether he is sleepy or not. This is to help prevent over-fatigue from interferringwith his rest cycle. He’s been doing quite well so far and I’m proud of him.

I did some research on the various sleep training techniques and tried different things.

What Does Not Work:

• The ‘Cry-It-Out’ method: Works him into a rage. After 15 minutes of crying, he cries even louder and it becomes harder to calm him down.

What Works:

• The ‘Controlled Crying’ technique is more useful. However, I don’t follow strictly to it as I vary the timing between him crying and picking him up. I listen to his cries and watch his body language. If the crying is starting to turn into screams, I pick him up. If it is showing signs of winding down, I just continue shaking the rattle.
• Side-coaching him: I tell him how proud I am of him learning to fall asleep independently. I explain why he needs to rest, and extol the benefits of sleep for him. I encourage him to listen to his body.
• Hugging him and telling him that it’s okay to be tired.

Road Ahead:

• Establishing a regular wake-feed-play-nap/sleep cycle for the day.Now, it alternates between this and a ‘wake-play-feed-play-nap/sleep’ cycle.
• To move Elisha from needing me to be by his side to fall asleep to true independence.
• Night-time sleep: This has been out-of-whack for the past week. He’s getting up almost every hour from 2am till 7am. Suspect that it’s the cold so shall be experimenting with ways to regulate our room temperature.

The Desirability of Sleep

I am coming one night-time sleep short of screaming, “I NEED SLEEP!”.

Elisha woke up a total of 5 times from the time I put him to bed at 7pm last night to 7 this morning. And that included an hour of him being fully awake from 3am to 4am. I was exasperated and frustrated! He had finished nursing but he was uncomfortable. I checked his diaper and changed it even though it wasn’t very wet. I cradled and rocked him. That made him wail louder. 

Several days of having intermittent night sleep really got to me and I snapped. I plonked the screaming baby next to his daddy and asked him to help while I catch some needed winks. Roy promptly got up.  He did his best to soothe him back to sleep. He did so by first ripping off Elisha’s sleeping bag because he thought he was too warm. That didn’t work. Roy laid him on his chest as he sat up in our bed. Elisha wasn’t happy with the lack of movement.  Roy took him out to the living room to try the stroller and the rattle. Still, it didn’t work.

Elisha bawled even louder. That woke my father up. Grandpa came to the rescue of the poor baby’s father. Roy came back to bed, and we exchanged a few snappy words with each other. He snoozed within seconds, but I couldn’t. Not when I could hear my father doing flashcards with the baby at that hour. So I dragged myself out of bed, thanked my dad for helping out and took Elisha back into my arms. We went into the room and I rocked him till he slept. Thankfully, it took only ten minutes before he did.

Why has he been waking up so often in the night? Why was he up for a whole hour? Questions I have no answers for. I’m trying to set the feed-play-nap routines in the day and putting him to bed earlier.I am still using Shichida’s method of suggestion by whispering ALL benefits of sleep and how good he is at sleeping when Elisha rests. If such conditioning is not really helping him, at least it is helping me to keep positive. Maybe it is just a phase and he will get back to sleeping better through the night soon. Meanwhile, I celebrate every second of sleep I get.

Chubby Cakes

As I was nursing little Elisha today, he grasped my finger with his chubby hands. I was awed by how much his fingers have grown. How much he has grown since I first met him last September! I don’t remember how tiny his fingers were then, but they were tiny and scrawny. Now, his digits have plumped into fat, fair cocktail sausages. They are so soft and springy to the touch that I cannot help but smother them with kisses!

First Lee Family Christmas

Roy and  I had our very first family Christmas with our precious Elisha. We got to share it with my parents over here in Macau and Hong Kong. While we did not manage to really set up a tradition, it was still significant. Nonetheless, it is my personal goal for 2009 that we start some family traditions of our own. Anyhow, here are some snapshots of our first Christmas with Elisha to share!

Welcome 2009

It’s the start of a BRAND NEW YEAR! Time to get new goals listed and accomplished even though I have left-over goals from last year yet to be done. I don’t do ‘resolutions’ because I never get them done. So I decided a while back to set goals instead. What’s difference between ‘resolutions’ and ‘goals’? Not much except that I feel that the term ‘goals’ makes me feel more motivated to accomplish them as opposed to ‘resolutions’ that seem more passive and doomed to failure.

Goals I’ve Set & Achieved in 2008:
Written (and soon-to-be published) stories
Learned calligraphy
Gotten a job in Macau (but was unable to accept it because I had a baby)

Left-over Goals from 2008:
Falling in love with Macau (yes, I’ve to do this again)
Learning to put on make-up, especially for the wintry weather
Learning to speak Cantonese fluently

Goals for 2009 (in order of importance)
To be a CHEERFUL Stay-At-Home-Mum to my Chubby Cakes
To be a CHEERFUL Stay-At-Home-Wife to my husband
To be consistently blogging
To be consistently journaling and refining my stories

Here’s to a FABULOUS YEAR ahead!