I have given up trying to find a pattern in this kid’s weird sleeping habits
November 3rd, 2011
Sleeping face-down on Mom’s crossed legs is SO two days ago. Face-UP is where it’s at.
This afternoon Elliora fell asleep in the car on the way home for a few minutes, which normally doesn’t affect her napping. But today when I brought her inside and nursed her, she didn’t fall asleep like she normally does. She was wide-awake and happy. I mentally shrugged, figuring she’d go to bed a bit early tonight, and we got up to play.
When her slightly-earlier-than-normal bedtime came around, she happily nursed and easily went to sleep, not even making a peep when I put her down in her bed. I went off to meet a friend at Starbucks for some companionable side-by-side laptopping, confident that she’d stay asleep…only to text my mom an hour and a half later and find out that she had awakened ten minutes after I left and had been awake ever since.
So I wasn’t surprised when she had a hard time going to sleep after that. I wasn’t even surprised at how hard she was fighting sleep; Elliora is very strong-willed and has been able to keep herself awake since she was born. What did surprise me was that when she flopped into a position face-up on my crossed legs, she relaxed and immediately went to sleep.
Nothing regarding this kid should surprise me anymore when it comes to sleep, though.
I’ve been gradually cutting down her night-nursing for a couple of months now, working my way up to eight hours without nursing. I did the same thing with Annalie, who was much more interested in nursing than Elliora ever has been, at about the same age. After a couple nights of her waking up and being denied a chance to nurse, Annalie just kinda went, “Oh, I won’t get fed if I wake up? All right then, I’ll just sleep,” and she stopped waking up at night almost entirely. The times she did wake up, it was easy to settle her back down by just patting her on the back and whispering to her.
Elliora, on the other hand, shows no sign of being even close to sleeping for eight hours without waking up, or of being willing to settle back down with just a touch and a reassurance. She does go back to sleep without nursing, so I don’t feel like she’s missing that. It’s more like she just isn’t a big sleeper. Annalie is like me: once we’re asleep, we’re out for the count and it’s hard to wake us up. I think Elliora just might be more like my brother: he has a hard time going to sleep and a hard time staying asleep, waking up more than once most nights. He’s been like that since the day he was born.
Elliora will sleep from bedtime (usually between 7-7:30) till around midnight without waking up about half the time. (The other half of the time, she might wake up once between bedtime and midnight, or she might wake up every hour on the hour. We never know which it will be.) She wakes up almost every night around midnight and usually takes about 10-15 minutes to settle back down with one of us picking her up and cuddling her. Just to keep things interesting, on some nights nothing on God’s green earth will calm her down for an hour or more.
Regardless of when or how often she wakes up, if we don’t pick her up, she will stand up in her crib and screeeeeeeeam and wake Annalie up. If we try to leave her in the bed and just pat her on the back, we have to physically hold her down to keep her from getting up, which makes her scream more, which wakes Annalie up. Annalie, very understandably, gets grouchy when a screaming baby wakes her up from a sound sleep.
The rest of the night is pretty unpredictable. Elliora usually only wakes up once between midnight and 4am, and can be settled back down with 10-15 minutes of cuddling. Or she might wake up every hour and need 10-15 minutes of holding each time, or she might just wake up and be awake for an hour or two.
Elliora has slept entirely through the night, from 8pm to 7am, exactly once in her life, on a night when we hadn’t done anything differently from any other night. So we know she can do it, but we have no idea how to make her do it again.
I would happily let her sleep with us and cuddle all night, but if she’s in bed with me and I won’t nurse her, she gets monumentally annoyed and will scream her annoyance for a long time. She’s also quite strong for her size, and trying to hold onto her when she’s struggling is difficult and exhausting. The times I have stuck it out and let her cry in my arms without giving in and nursing her, she’s screamed for two hours or more. Usually if I nurse her, she’s fine and will go to sleep eventually, but if I nurse her in bed I’ll probably fall asleep, and since she’s learned how to crawl we don’t feel safe leaving her in bed with us all night while we’re sleeping. She’s an explorer and she takes every chance she gets to wander off.
What it all comes down to is that Elliora is incredibly strong-willed. She isn’t a sound sleeper and she isn’t very flexible about her sleeping habits. She’s very good at letting us know how she’s feeling, and when she’s mad she screams about it.
It’s already gotten so much better than it used to be with her, sleep-wise. But there still isn’t much consistency, and that’s both baffling and frustrating at times. We know it won’t be this way forever, and we’ll deal with it like grown-ups and do our best to gently teach her, when she seems ready, how to sleep through the night without the all-night milk bar or on-demand snuggling. But we’ll still be really happy when she’s sleeping through the night consistently.
What about you? Does your kid have a sleeping habit that mystifies you, or drives you crazy? Or do you have one of those mythical kids who sleeps beautifully?
I’m SO close to 10,000 comments on this blog! Will this post be the one that gets the 10,000th comment!? I think it could be…and that 10,000th commenter will win a piece of custom-painted pottery, or something crocheted, or maybe something else entirely. It’s just my way of saying “thank you” for all for the great comments over the past four years. So gimme your two cents, and YOU could be lucky #10,000!
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Oh man. I have completely given up on my children and sleep. They are total mysteries.
Out of my three kids, Emily was the one I had to work the hardest with to get on a sleep schedule. It was a little tricky to get her to sleep. She was very easily distracted and didn’t like to give in to sleep. Once she was down she had one waking that required a bottle and then she would go back down for the night. I think that waking ended around a year old.
Audrey is the sleep pro. She’s been a good sleeper from day one. When she was a baby she would go to sleep as early as 5 p.m. and wake up around 7 a.m. Now her bedtime is 8 p.m. and she wakes up around 7 a.m. Sometimes she’ll wake at 9 a.m. I think the key with Audrey is that she’s not much of an eater. She never has been. I think she would rather sleep than eat.
Molly has been pretty much like Audrey, but a little bit shorter lengths of sleeping.
All three of my kids have needed their own beds, a night light and white noise to sleep.
My experience has been that just when you think you’ve figured out a pattern or what makes them happy, they will change everything up. It sounds like you’re going with the flow, which is the best way to go about it. It’s maddening trying to predict or manipulate any sort of outcome.
Isaac is only 6 weeks and i’m just starting to attempt putting him on a sleep schedule in anticipation of my return to work. Problem is that i don’t really know what i’m doing! Right now, “sleep schedule” to me just means teaching him to sleep next to me instead of on me. We’ll move on from there – baby steps.
Yeah… Kevin will be 3 in a few weeks and, well, I still can’t figure out how to keep him asleep. I’ve given up, and am hoping in the next year or two he will be in his own bed, like his sisters.
But MAN do I miss the way Lorelei would stay asleep when we put her in her crib, and then just wait quietly for me to get her in the morning. Lorelei is still the child who usually sleeps the most.
Lisa claims she never sleeps, but I’m sure she is asleep now. I’m gonna go poke her to be sure ; )
Oh my goodness! she sounds just like my baby at the moment! lily used to sleep not too badly, waking only twice a night but now? Crazy sleep pattern. Some nights it’s every two hours and since the clocks went back here it’s up at 5am every morning…which is strange as she used to wake at 7am but has obviously decided that she lost 2 hours instead of just one.
Babies who sleep through the night are an urban myth right? :)
Clearly Ellie V takes after me…despite there being no family connection.
I am a night owl (as you know from our crocheting and TV sessions on your couch). I have trouble getting to sleep, and I can wake up multiple times per night. Some nights though, I sleep and get through until about an hour before my alarm. Those nights baffle me, because I have generally done nothing different.
I once went without Pepsi/Coke (my caffeine hit) for 6 weeks. No difference. I lived for two years in a bedroom where I had no television. No difference.
The science of sleep mystifies me. I wish I knew its secrets.
Huh…gently teaching her how to sleep through the night without the all-night milk bar or on-demand snuggling. Isabelle never learned that. She STILL gets on demand snuggling. Ha ha ha!
Well not really snuggling. But we have a family bed and she likes putting her feet on my legs. When we went to Disneyland I shared a bed with Nathan and Isabelle shared one with Alan since Nathan still has the milk bar and snuggling thing going on.
Alan didn’t sleep very well. He said she was kicking him all night. But she wasn’t kicking, it was the snuggling! :)
ok, so i’m not commenting because of the 10.000th comment…ok, maybe a little :)
oh my, when i read that post i thought: wow, it’s like reading our story all over again…
our younger girl did.not.sleep. for 3 years. i don’t want to discourage you, but we tried every.single.sleeping.training there is and nothing worked…ok, it worked for maybe 1 night or 2 and then it was back to square one.
i was very tired after all those years and when we talked to our pediatrician she considered to make a “test” to see if our girl had a birth-trauma {that test is actually a question-answer type for the parents}. and well, turns out she did actually have one. we tried a certain method which is recommended after that test and gave her certain globules at night and the most important part: to teach her that it’s ok to fall asleep and stay asleep. that nothing will happen to her and that she will be fine in the morning. it took us about 3 months and we finally see progress now. she’s waking up once {mostly around 5ish} and she falls asleep after that quite easily. and even when she’s taking naps now she goes down for the night quite easily. a new and beautiful thing!
what i learned from our sleeping story? to get help sooner and to go with your instinct. i always thought that something was wrong with my girl and her sleeping pattern {when she woke up she would scream bloody murder all the time and after that she wouldn’t fall back asleep for 2 hours} and everyone always told me to live with it and that it will get better over time…
and i think that “sleeping-during-the-night-since-they-are-6-weeks-old” is a myth as well :)
i hope that you may get some restful sleep soon!
have a great weekend!
leslie
We’ve found everything changes too fast to claim anything. :)
Our first was really colicky. When she was tiny and there was NO way to settle her, we started carefully following Weissbluth’s “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” and it gave us a framework and confidence we needed to stick out the screaming. That book offers lots of options and we chose what we were comfortable with (actually not comfortable, but as there was nothing we could do to comfort her when it was crying time, we were resigned to some crying as she learned to go to sleep). We’d recommend it — not sure it’s the only good reference, or the best, but for us having a plan was essential and this book had plans and plausible arguments for them.
How fortunate Elliora is to have such a patient mom and family!
When my girls were little, and not sick they slept like angels. Naturally I thought their children would be the same way. Not so much! Peyton does pretty well now that he is back to sleeping in his own bed. He will pretty much sleep from about 8-8:30pm until 6:00am without a problem. Chance sleeps with his mama and someone has to lay down with him before he will go to sleep, but once asleep he sleeps from about 7:30pm until 6:00am without incident unless he’s sick. Brady … Oh My Granny! He’s a holy terror when it comes to sleep. He doesn’t want to go to sleep and once asleep the slightest noise and he’s wide awake again. If he gets 30 minutes sleep then wakes up you may as well resign yourself to being up all night with him. He’s done sleeping for the night and he’s good to go for the next 12-14 hours. He slept better than the other two until we took his pacifier then he rebelled and decided to stop sleeping. I’ve often considered giving it back to him. Would that be wrong … since he’s almost 3?
Erik was the worst sleeper in the world. The absolute worst. Ugh. Then he turned three and everything fell into place.
Elsa loves to sleep, but she is very particular about how she wants to go to sleep. If I put her down she wants to sleep on me. She will do just fine if anyone else puts her down in bed, but if she can see me or smell me or whatever, she refuses to sleep without me. It is very frustrating.
Sleep-wise, it almost sounds like Noah is Elliora’s twin! He was always very into nursing, though, so for the bulk of his life, the easiest, fastest way to get him back to sleep after the many random wake-ups was to be the human pacifier.
We tried night-weaning when he was 18 months, and it was a total disaster. It was a whole month (we gave it a fair shake, I think) of NOBODY getting much of any sleep. He didn’t scream after the first 2-3 nights, but he never fell deeply asleep after waking up, turning the night into a circus.
I finally decided that the most important thing, my guiding principle for sleep decisions would be “everyone gets to rest.” With that, I continued night-nursing for another year (I usually fell asleep while nursing with no problems), and we still co-sleep part of most nights.
I know that won’t work for you, but I figured I’d share on the interest of story-completion. :)
Wow – Fortunately for us, we have one of those mystical babies who just falls asleep (of course it has only been 2 months – things can change). I am realizing how lucky we are & how easy we have had it, relatively speaking. I hope I am not jinxing myself by saying that.
I’m tellin’ ya – whiskey!!!!
I was also a VERY strong-willed baby/toddler and am still strong-willed/stubborn. On the plus side, these traits are usually associated with high intelligence :)
My 4 years old has always been a pretty good sleeper (except for the first 4 months of her life, which is typical) but we have one on the way, due in January, and after reading your post I am crossing my fingers that she will be a good sleeper too! I do not deal well with sleep deprivation so my heart goes out to you. Wish I had words of wisdom for you. By the way, I really enjoy your blog!
Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep? YES PLEASE.
So the question is… when she falls asleep like that can you move her to the crib or do you have to sit like that until the next time she wakes?
My kids are pretty consistent sleepers, BUT Trenty (18 mo) goes to sleep EASY and Raleigh (3 yr) STILL screams and cries and has the HARDEST time before naps and bedtime. I can’t tell if its a personality thing or what, but it drives me nuts. Gotta love the mystery that is rearing children, lol.
sorry to hear it’s such a mystery with this one! sue does make for some cute pictures when she does finally zonk out.
*SURE does :) (I don’t expect another comment count for this one!)
Oh Bethany, so sorry to hear of the sleeping woes. Our son (now 6) had a very rough time with sleep, and like your other commenter, we tried everything and then a friend recommend the Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child book. It was a lifesaver – especially the tips about protecting the nap and the different sleep needs at different ages. There are lots of options to try and we finally had to do the cry-it-out thing with our son, and it was the only thing that worked. Often our son could not sleep because he was overtired (and also woke up a lot for the same reason, screaming ironically because he was overtired), and even letting him nap a few minutes in the car threw everything off–see “protecting the nap.” It made us feel like sleep Nazis for a while, but it really really worked. It worked and now it’s a distant memory. All the best to you and sending sleepy bunny vibes to you1!
It is so much worse when there is another child to worry about being woken up. My daughter (2 years) and son (7 months) share a room and we do a lot more sleep intervention with him than we ever did with her at the same age, mostly out of fear that he will wake her up. And both your experience and mine really drives home the fact that no two kids are alike!
My son didn’t sleep through the night till he was a year old and my daughter was 10 or 11 months when she finally did. They didn’t require as much intervention as your little one though. I hope it gets better for you soon!
Sophie is extremely strong-willed, but has always been a good sleeper (when she stops making crafts in the dark and actually GOES to sleep, that is).
Eliza is much more easy-going, but is not a great sleeper. Well, she’s actually more of a mix-it-up sleeper. Sometimes she’s great – sleeping from 8 until around 5 without a peep. And other nights, she’s up a gazillion times, for no particular reason. Also, unlike Sophs, she’s not good at self-soothing. Sophie would wake up, howl a few times like she was prepared to rage all night, and then give up and conk back off again a few minutes later. Eliza, when she wakes up, CANNOT fall back asleep on her own. We have to intervene, with cuddles or a bottle, to get her to settle down. Otherwise she just cranks herself into a sweaty, snotty, red-faced, clench-fisted, screeeeeeeeaming maniac…that wakes up her sister.
I don’t know. I don’t get it. I wish I had some helpful tidbits to toss your way, but really, it seems kiddos fall into either the Sleeper category or the Not Sleeper category (as adults do – I’m a Not Sleeper). I mean, I think there are things you can try when they’re little (“cry it out”, etc), but I think their basic sleep nature is really hard to change.
was working on an afgan for my niece’s baby doll that involved using your pattern for the spiral square and thought I haven’t been here in such a long time, I really should see what you are up to.
I can’t believe how big E. is now. My girls are total opposites when it comes to sleeping. Giggles, now almost 17, napped rarely and was a light sleeper, she still is. The Chicken, 13, loved sleep and she still does and it’s so hard to wake her.
congrats on all those comments! I really will be back sooner than later this time.
I have mythical kids. I won’t go into it because it’s mean to brag. I’ll just say that very often we get what we can handle and nothing more. Obviously I would be unable to handle a kid that doesn’t sleep through the night.
You have unplumbed depths of patience that I envy.
My niece is the same way! My sister has to rock her, play with her, and even sing to her before she will even close her eyes for the night. She’s going on 2 so she’s hoping things change soon. Hope things go well!
I have the same kids…but in reverse. I hate to tell you this, but the first one didn’t sleep through the night until she was 18 months old. She is still not that great a sleeper (and she’s TWELVE!) My second one slept through the night at 7 WEEKS and I have ALWAYS had to wake her up in the morning to go to preschool and then regular school…she sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. Crazy, huh?
I have a sound sleeper who has been sleeping through the night since she was born. I also have one who never sleeps and has to go to sleep with me beside him. According to him, this is how it’s going to go…he is never getting bigger because he wants to stay in my bed. Lovely.
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This story reminds me of my nieces. I’ve lived with them since the older one was born, so I was right there through all the nighttime baby woes. The older niece, now three and a half, has always been a pretty good sleeper. Slept all night, took long naps, etc. Sometimes she had trouble going down, but usually only woke up in the night if she was teething. And mostly, she was easy to put down. Baby number 2 came along and of course was completely different. She sounds a lot like Elliora! For the first year of her life, she was soooo difficult to put down to sleep. She screamed and cried when going to bed. Once she was out, she usually didn’t wake up, but putting her to bed or nap was torture! She goes through periods where she’ll wake up in the night for a few weeks, then sleeps through again. These periods are not nice either, as she does wake up screaming very loudly! She just turned 2 and fortunately has gotten much better about screaming and going to sleep. Sometimes she still fights it, but we know her well enough to work around it now! We know she understands the routine of going to bed and we do our routine and she goes to bed. She sometimes cries when we leave, but she always quiets down within 10 minutes. At this point, we know she’s just crying to get her way, not because she needs something! Ah babies. Such hard work, but worth the effort!
Oh, sounds like my house.
I had 4 mythical sleepers. Slept through the night early on and napped. I was able to figure out what worked for each of them and make it happen. What their off switch was, as I am now calling it. People asked how I did it. No big deal, just make it happen.
This little love, number five, I can not figure out her “off switch”. Not a lot of sleeping happening here.
I’ve decided it is the universe making me stop, and hold, and take in this last baby. Because I will miss it.
My oldest was a great sleeper, and still is. She slept through the night at 2 1/2 weeks old. She falls asleep easily and stays asleep. The only issue we had with her was getting her to wake up to go potty because she slept so soundly.
My second was her polar opposite. She was up all night, it was hard to get her to fall asleep, it was hard for her to stay asleep. We did swaddling, baths, music, a long drawn out bedtime routine, and then we finally did cry it out at 8 1/2 months which helped quite a bit. She is now 3 and while still not a fantastic sleeper, it is so much better than it was. She has had night terrors and she seems to go through sleep cycles and patterns. She sleeps with lots of “accessories”: a fan, a night light, two pacifiers, books and stuffed animals…but most nights she does sleep. She still gets up sometimes but is usually willing to go back to bed on her own.
If we have another, I am so hoping for another great sleeper.
So all that to say, it will get easier and I feel your pain!