Barren Mare:

Forgive the delay in updating: I am overcome by a ridiculous toothache. I say it is ridiculous because I purposefully went to the dentist in Florida, thinking that it was high time I took care of my teeth properly and not having been in about two years, figuring that a check up was overdue. Which it was, since I had a cavity and I had it treated. Which is why I am perplexed and annoyed at the growing discomfort in that area of my mouth; ignoring it for the last two months has not proven successful and now I am experiencing intervals of pain so agonising that simply passing out in the manner of a wilting Victorian lady would not be out of the question. Hmm. So. Back to the dentist on Thursday for remedial (and no doubt doubly expensive) work.

Anyway- where were we? Oh, yes, sleep. Sleeeeeeep. Here's the summary:

On the third night of sleep training a la Weissbluth, Botany went to bed at 6.30 pm and cried for maybe ten minutes. Then she slept through until 5am.

On the fourth night, she cried for two minutes and slept through until 5.45 am.

On the fifth night, when I put her down, she rolled over and was sound asleep before I left the room- and then slept through until around 5am, with not a peep emitting from the monitor the entire night.

And so it has been every night since. Join me in the happy happy sleep dance. I am shall, we say, delighted at the improvement. Who knew that waking at 5am would be considered such a welcome change? I am positively giddy about it. Really, I find that I absolutely don't begrudge the relatively early waking, so ecstatic am I that she's slept through. Besides, most days, if I bring her into bed with me at that point and nurse, she'll fall back asleep until 6.30 or 7am.

My main worry at first was that Botany would be waking up hungry, missing her middle of the night nursing. But evidently not. I thought, too, that a part of me might yearn for those cosy midnight feeding sessions, just the two of us cuddling and rocking while the rest of the world was dark and quiet. Ahem. Again, not so much. It had its place, to be sure, but truth is, I feel like a woman transformed as a result of having several consecutive nights of decent sleep (apart from being woken up by the horrendous toothache) and from not having to provide the all night milk bar service.

It would also appear that she has figured out how to lie back down, unaided after sitting up. The first couple of nights when I peeked in after she was finally out, I would find her sprawled in odd positions as if she had simply toppled over when overcome with sleep. I resisted the urge to prod her into a more comfy spot, figuring she would get there on her own; and so she has.

With the sleep issues resolved (at least for the moment- I'm not stupid enough to think that we're completely out of the woods on that one), I can now start to worry about other things, like how I am going to manage to switch my brain back on for going back to work in July. I feel somewhat atrophied in the intellectual department. Don't get me wrong, I love spending my days with Botany. However, despite our best efforts to get out and do fun things, there are points where I am aware of a certain mind-numbing repetitiveness to the proceedings. For example, we currently spend a lot of time sitting on the nursery floor while she pulls all her books off the shelf one by one. Then we read each of the books (or rather, I read them to her while she waves her arms about making hooting noises, which I take to be excitement and/or approval). Our local library is being refurbished, so the selection of books for little people is minimal. Out of desperation I've ordered a bunch of new titles from Amaz*n, because at this rate, I will be reciting "Mr Brown Can Moo, Can You?" and "Baby Elmo is soooooo big" in all the fresh sleep I am now getting.

Mmmm...toothache. Pass the smelling salts.

Well, we're back.

Botany was once again a complete angel on the return journey (my seat finagling having proved very successful, incidentally- having booked the aisle and window, nobody in their right mind wanted to sit between us)*. I inflated the nursing pillow (thank you, stupidly named but oh-so handy "brest friend" travel cushion) and she fell asleep on take-off. To my delight, she slept the whole way, happily attached to the boob; I had to wake her on landing. I, of course, was trapped in my seat with the cold air blasting on my restless achy legs- but it was worth it to see Botany so content and to win kudos from the flight attendants ("what a good baby! not a peep!")

And then she refused to go to sleep ever again.

Actually, I jest. Naps remain business as usual- if I lie down and nurse her, she will sleep for up to two hours sometimes. Nighttime, though, immediately went to hell in a hand cart. Nursing, rocking, cuddling, etc. etc. sends her off to sleepysleepy quite happily- until she is put down and the wails commence. Part of it is no doubt the time difference (incidentally, the day after a night flight is no picnic when dealing with a baby who has had a more or less full quota of sleep while you, the parent, are catatonic from exhaustion and yet have to somehow stay up to try to get everyone back on track). The other issue may, I think, be that because of all the sitting up/ pre-standing up, we had to proceed with dropping the cot down to the lower setting. It now looks omniously like baby jail and it seems she hates it with the fire of a thousand setting suns.

After a couple of days of giving her a chance to recalibrate her time clock and meanwhile doing the endless bedtime shuffle (nurse/rock to drowsy/asleep, put down, pick up, repeat repeat) for over two or three hours, throw in some repeated, extended nightwakings and (again) I finally had enough. So much for trembling in the face of sleep training; let's get it on. And this time, I decided we were going to go for the hardcore cold turkey approach.

Lest anyone pillory me, I should explain: I purchased and read Weissbluth's Happy Sleep/Happy Kid book thing while in the States. I hadn't really intended to do so but it' s not widely available in the UK and I figured as long as I had the opportunity, I might as well explore the third leg of the sleep expert trifecta (Pantley, Ferber, Weissbluth). I won't go into detail about the book; I concur with the many reviews in finding the text largely incoherent, poorly edited and full of annoying testimonials (including one which describes early bedtime equalling a later wake up time as "a Catch-22"- um, no.) But there are a few little gem-like nuggets buried within all the guff.

In short, Weissbluth (while offering other approachs) primarily advocates the cold turkey approach- baby in cot, shut the door, don't go in again for the whole night, no matter how long your darling cries. Aieee! Prior to reading the book, the whole concept of unlimited CIO made me shudder; how evil and cruel it seemed to not even go check! But then I read the bit where he points out that in behavioural terms, the extinction method is so effective because as soon as you consistently stop reinforcing that which you are trying to eliminate, the problem basically goes away (especially if you've up until now been consistently reinforcing the unwanted behaviour). Thus resulting in a quicker fix and ultimately, less crying over the whole piece.

Huh, I thought. Coupled with the fact that every time I went in a la Ferber, Botany would ramp herself up into additional hysterics at the sight of me coming and leaving, I figured we may as well give it a whirl. If nothing else, it's a very easy approach to follow in terms of being consistent- just don't. go. in. (OK, I did sneak in shortly after she fell asleep to make sure she hadn't gotten herself into a tangle in the cot bars or anything and to stare contritely at her sweet little sleeping body- I think the approach should be revised to don't go in while the baby is awake).

We're on night two; it's thus far not been pleasant hearing Botany cry but it was going to be a bit grim no matter how we went about it. I was dreading the middle of the night wake-ups the most, since I thought she might flip out about not getting nursed. But in fact, these were not at all bad. It seems she can put herself to sleep (eventually) even if she has been sitting up, which is sort of good to know. There was a long, long, long crying spell the first night when I put her down; she then woke up a number of times in the night, had a brief gurn/whimper and went back to sleep until 6.30 am. Tonight she cried for a longish time upon being put down; we'll see how the rest of the night goes. I figure try it for a week and then reassess how it's going.

In case anyone is marvelling as to how I can be such a cold-hearted bitch as to make my child cry (allow. we allow to cry, says Weissbluth), I can only reiterate what has gone before: I've realised I just can't parent properly if I don't get any sleep at night or any personal time whatsoever in the evening to take of my basic needs (eat, shower, pay bills). I'm not really expecting this approach to be the silver bullet- but with my return to work now looming, I think it's really time we took a real, consistent stab at trying to help Botany (and ourselves) sleep better at night. I'll let you know how it goes, assuming my fingernails aren't worn down to bloody nups from having to restrain myself from going to comfort my child.

*(apparently, I am in a brackety sort of mood, judging from the number used in this post)