Sweet Unicorn Dreams!

Iver is really into unicorns (and all things rainbow-related).

When we asked him if he wanted a new backpack for "Kindergarten" so he could pass his old cat backpack down to Niall, he requested one with unicorns on it (and he got it).

Niall officially outgrew his crib (escaping constantly) a couple of weeks ago, so we moved him to the full-size bed which was already in the kids' room (formerly Iver's bed). Iver has actually been sleeping in the guest room for the past several months which has worked out well, as he goes to sleep a bit later and often wakes up earlier than his still-napping younger brother (now that we're in a great place with family sleep, we really don't want the kids waking each other up!), and we haven't had any guests any time in the recent past nor are there plans for the intermediate future.  However, we really would like the boys to share a room and sleep (they did share a room for some period of time, but I can't remember exactly when or for how long), and we thought that this was a good time to try to re-visit the arrangement.

We considered getting bunk beds, but Iver got a bit gun-shy after he remembered the story about auntie Vanessa falling out of her loft bed as a kid and preferred a closer-to-floor-level bed (we figured two full-size beds also allows some flexibility if we have other guests or sleepovers in the future). Iver was enticed by the thought of special unicorn sheets for his new bed-- here they are.

One of his sweet teachers, Cila, knowing how much he likes unicorns, gifted him this unicorn nightlight, which complements the room decor well (since Niall loved it so much, she even got him one, too!).

Gloria, another teacher, also got him a water bottle, which he keeps at school. 

It's been a couple of nights of pretty peaceful room-sharing and sweet (unicorn) dreams for the kiddos!  We hope it continues!

Opposite of your children

 

Kelvin was reading the Dr. Seuss book "I am NOT going to Get up Today!" (one we had on our shelf but hadn't read) to Iver the other night and I thought to myself, "Wow. That book title/content represents the total opposite of my child."

 

Child #1 HATES to sleep. He has serious FOMO (fear of missing out) and has always been an early riser (4:40 a.m. for over a year when he was a toddler). He was climbing out of the crib around 13 months and had to be transitioned to a bed. He required a lot of lying-next-to, reassurance, check-ins, fortified baby gates, and even required at one point locking him in via a door-monkey to keep him in his bedroom due to his excuses and escapes, as nothing seemed to be effective in incentivizing bedtime behavior. So. Many. Tears. (his and mine). Even now at age five (and a quarter), he tells me "I don't sleep. I never sleep. I just lie there with my eyes closed until morning."  It's been a rough few years (but right now is as good as it has been --once he dropped his nap around age 4, he has been sleeping until close to 6 a.m., and going to be around 8 or 8:30 p.m. without too much drama).  I have no idea what he'll be like as a teenager, but I will be SHOCKED if he ever says to me one day, "I am NOT going to get up today!"

 

Child #2, however, is a different story and has been since 9 months old. This weekend, he (25 months) literally came up to me and said, "I tired. I take a nap" and so we got him in his sleep sack and off to sleep he went. I don't think we've had a bedtime battle in his life. At nighttime, we throw him (well, gently put him down) in his crib with a blanket, turn on the sound machine, close the door, and walk away, and we hear from him at 6 a.m. (sometimes there is singing to himself as he's drifting off, but no crying). It's essentially the same for naps. I don't know if/when he'll ever climb out of his crib or how/if our lives will change then.

 

But for now, I'm counting my sheep, er, blessings.

 

Two kids. Total sleep opposites (and different in many ways, but this is the sharpest contrast for me).

 

Have your kids been total opposites in other departments?

 

What book title represents the total opposite of your child/children?

Sleeping solo

We are a house of sleep-challenged folks.  I don't know how it is for everyone, but I've definitely struggled with sharing-a-bed sleep difficulties since being married. I am not sure if it's just that I'm an extremely light sleeper, and even having Kelvin roll over in (our king-sized) bed, tug on the blanket a bit (I know some couples who each have their own blanket), or get up to use the restroom in the middle of the night wakes me from slumber (and sometimes it's hard to get back to a deep sleep).  A quick google search confirmed that apparently I'm not alone (anywhere from a quarter to a whopping sixty percent of people say they sleep more restfully when they sleep alone). I could probably count on one hand the number of nights I've slept more than six uninterrupted hours in the last five years.

Adding kids is a whole separate issue (and I think it makes parents, at least myself, literally sleep obsessed [I'm sure I've written about dozen blog posts about sleep issues]). I have never (personally or professionally) been a fan of co-sleeping (bed- or room-sharing); however, both of our kids did sleep in the room with us for several months especially when they were nursing frequently. Both were in a Snuggle-nest thingie in the bed or in a pack and play for about 6-8 weeks. Iver then room-shared in a pack-and-play until moving to a crib down the hall when he was about three months old, while Niall (the far better sleeper) was in a crib in our bedroom until about 10 months, when he (sleeping through the night) moved in with Iver. I would have loved to move Niall out earlier, but we didn't have a great place to put him and were nervous about the transition to sharing a room with his brother (the not-great sleeper, who finally learned to sleep through the night at 19 months, the age that Niall is now [!] and who did a year or more of 4:40 a.m. up-for-the-day wakings!). (The move actually went great and they both slept until close to 6 a.m. until the last couple of weeks).


I feel it's fair to say that having kids makes one a lighter sleeper (some evolutionary mechanism to prevent a lion from stealing your baby in the middle of the night?). Even when Niall moved down to one night waking, it took me a long time for my body to not wake up at midnight, and even though he's been sleeping through the night for about ten months, my body still wakes me between 2-3 a.m. most nights, about 4-5 hours after I go to sleep, and I struggle with frequent wakings about hourly thereafter, until I get up at 5:30 to shower and get ready for the day.  Even when my kids sleep, I feel like I don't (or I have a dog trying to snuggle next to my chest-- yes, Pepper is allowed in our bed). It's frustrating.

Anyway, back to "sleeping solo"/our recent sleeping arrangement. We had four people sleeping in four different rooms last week.  I was on OB call for six out of eight days/nights last week, and as a result, Kelvin moved to sleep in our guest room so that he wouldn't be woken by my phone ringing in the middle of the night.  Niall recently started doing some early waking (like 5:00), which made us nervous, as Iver (who isn't napping much these days) has been miraculously staying in bed until 6:00 (which has been a great wake-up time in my opinion and was the norm for many months). We're not quite sure the etiology (cold? hungry?), as 5 a.m. seems a bit early, with a 7:30 or 8 p.m. bedtime and ~2-hour afternoon nap. Our sleep bible The Happy Sleeper suggests that you do some cry-it-out (we have the ok-to-wake light in the room) to encourage the child to return to sleep until the acceptable hour, and it may take 2-3 weeks to self-correct (they recommend not moving bedtime later). For a few days, the wake-ups definitely got better, but in the meantime, we moved Iver to the office futon with white noise so that he wouldn't be woken by crying (and Kelvin and I both were sleeping in our respective "rooms" with white noise on.  Iver's even taken to calling our master bedroom "mama's room" now!).

Iver moved back in with Niall last night as the kids' room is warmer, and somehow thankfully slept through 45 minutes of morning crying, but the early wake-up for our youngest continued today. Kelvin will likely be back in "mama's room" for at least a night as I'm not on call (until tomorrow); however, I wonder how all of our sleep quality will be...

Sigh.  How do you get four different people to sleep well with room-sharing and different body rhythms, bedtimes, sleep needs, etc.?   It seems to be an eternal struggle.

 

A Silent Night; HALLELUJAH!

Someone once told me or posted something saying that the second part of your (parenting) life starts when your child is able to get up without you, pour a bowl of cereal with milk, and entertain him- or herself until a reasonable hour. While this hasn't happened for us yet (our fridge shelves are too high), 12/12/18 is the date of the morning when Kelvin and I woke up at 6:05 (in the guest room), realizing that neither one of our children had been up or gotten up out of bed or needed us for about 11 hours, after going to bed between 7-8 p.m. the preceding night!


It was a first. While Iver often "sleeps through" the night, his early morning wakings (generally between 4:45 and 5:45) don't usually leave us feeling very rested when Niall was also night-waking (but now, as of last weekend, Niall is not!). Last night, both children slept through.

IT. FELT. A-MAZ-ING!! While Wednesday is my hardest *work* day, today felt like such a different day.  I felt rested. Healthy. Energized. Positive. Happy. Like the sun came out and this parenting thing was manageable. It has been a very long and hard ~four years.  I am optimistic (but cautiously so) that this will continue as a trend, but for now, I wanted to document this first (silent) night.

A pre-Christmas Miracle indeed!

Joy to the World!

HALLELUJAH!!

via GIPHY

ANOTHER WHOLE HOUR

We have had a not-long-sleeping, early-rising toddler for about two years. Iver's preferred wake-up time has been between 4:30 and 5 a.m. after going to bed around 8 p.m. Every. Single. Day. (Luckily, he has been sleeping through the night most nights, so there is at least a continuous stretch of sleep).

However, when we went to my parents' house for Christmas just after his third birthday, we were getting him to sleep until 7 or 7:30 a.m. (which, yes, I realize is 4:30 in California); however, he was going to bed around the same time (between 8 and 9 p.m.) on the East Coast. We were so puzzled.  How could we replicate this 2-3 hours more sleep PER NIGHT when we returned home? What had we been doing wrong?

We wondered if it was the darkness, and so we removed from his room the stoplight ok-to-wake stoplight alarm clock which I think helped us teach him to sleep through the night at around 19 months (it had been staying red until 5 a.m., which is what we deemed an acceptable wake-up time). We replaced it with a small digital clock, which emits much less light, and it's helped (and he now can read time)!

Now, we are having a toddler who (still naps a couple of hours after lunch and) sleeps from about 8 or 8:30 p.m. until closer to 5:30 a.m. (and has even made it past 6 a.m. a few times, which buys him some extra morning raisins and us a lot of wondering whether he's still alive)!. One day, he told us he woke up in the 5 o'clock hour but stayed in bed until 6 just for the raisins! Although we have to now train our bodies to "sleep in" in rather than awaking early as we've been programmed, we are rejoicing!  It's incredible how much difference a later wake-up hour makes in your overall health, well-being, mood, and resiliency.  I am shocked, delighted, and of course questioning what magic happened in his brain (and how I can help this happen sooner than three years in our #2). This has been the parenting miracle for 2018!

Sleepless Nights

 

As I think I have mentioned before, I have really struggled with insomnia since moving to Humboldt County. I don't have the "onset" insomnia (i.e. difficulty falling asleep) that some people have (falling asleep is NO problem, as evidenced by these pictures...); rather, I have "maintenance" insomnia, which means I can't stay asleep. I wake up about 4-5 times in an average night and have probably slept through the night about three times in eight months. Granted, I'm usually able to turn over and fall right back to sleep, even after getting up to use the bathroom, but it still makes for very interrupted sleep, and I don't usually feel rested during the day, leading to exhaustion the next day, and inability to stay up past 9 or 10 pm.

Pep's preferred sleep position!

(yes, she really sleeps like this!)

I must say that I have newfound sympathy for patients of mine who come in complaining of insomnia and requesting treatment.  I used to think that benzodiazepines and Ambien were the devil, but now I'm not so sure; however, I have never tried either. One lady told me that she hasn't slept through the night in over 20 years, ever since she was militant about waking to breastfeed her under-weight newborn every 2 hours. I can see why people become desperate from not sleeping.

I'm not sure the "cause" of my insomnia. Sleeping through the night has never been a problem for me, before this year. Maybe it is sharing a bed? (a few friends have suggested getting a larger, i.e. queen- or king-sized bed). Maybe it is actually not being sleep deprived every day from 30-hour calls of residency?

My first recommendations for patients with concerns about their sleep include optimizing "sleep hygiene," which includes the following:

- Sleep as long as necessary to feel rested (usually 7 to 8 hours for adults) and then get out of bed (after residency, this is actually possible)
- Maintain a regular sleep schedule (nearly impossible for me due to being on call)
- Try not to force sleep-- if you are not sleepy, get up and do something else that is not super-productive until you are drowsy (not a problem)
- Adjust the bedroom environment as needed to decrease stimuli (eg, reduce ambient light, turn off the television or radio)
- Resolve concerns or worries before bedtime (not an issue)
- Exercise regularly for at least 20 minutes, preferably more than four to five hours prior to bedtime (easily done)
- Avoid daytime naps, especially if they are longer than 20 to 30 minutes or occur late in the day (who has time for naps?!)
- Only use the bed for sleep and sex; avoid watching TV or reading in bed (I am kind of guilty here... I like to read in bed)
-  Avoid using the computer, phones, or other electronic devices before bedtime as these can stimulate the brain (I could be better about this one)

afternoon nap time (a no-no, I know)

Avoid caffeinated beverages after lunch (hard for me to do esp when I'm so fatigued)
Avoid sugar, as highs/lows can cause un-restful sleep (sugar is a weakness of mine)
Avoid alcohol near bedtime (eg, late afternoon and evening)- (actually, I sleep pretty soundly after a glass of wine!)
Avoid smoking or other nicotine intake, particularly during the evening
Try to increase foods rich in magnesium (which is a natural sedative), like legumes and seeds, dark leafy green vegetables, wheat bran, almonds, cashews, blackstrap molasses, brewer's yeast, and whole grains.

While there are a few things I could improve, I really try to do most of the above. I have tried restricting liquids after dinner as sometimes having to go to the bathroom annoys me in the middle of the night. I try sleep-depriving myself, i.e. forcing myself to stay awake until 11 or later, so as to try to prevent the awakenings which often start as early as midnight or 1 a.m. I have tried the occasional benadryl but I don't really like taking meds. I have done some "herbal" research, finding that valerian, melatonin, chamomile, and lavender all have soothing, sleep-promoting qualities.

I bought some melatonin from Costco but am afraid to take it when I'm on call. I recently visited the local herb store, Moonrise Herbs (great resource for "natural" remedies), in Arcata for some suggestions, and came away with a sleepy-time tea (with chamomile and other herbs) as well as lavender essential oil, which I place on my wrists prior to bed. I swear this has helped with sleep quality; it also helped me fall asleep after getting back from a late-night c-section, which often leaves me wired and restless.  K worries I'm going to become one of those organic, herby hippies who don't bathe or shave, and refuse to vaccinate their (future) kids, but he is wrong. I just want to sleep!

Lavender flowers

So let it be said that, when something works, you want to stick with it. I'm now slightly obsessed with lavender-- check out my assortment of scented beads, fabric spray, scent diffuser, dried herbs in sachets (with the mini bottle of essential oil in the middle).  I'm already getting drowsy..... :)

Please let me know any other sleep suggestions you may have!

Lazy or laboring...

I've been pretty lazy since being home. Last night, I was so exhausted that I was in bed by 8:30 (eastern time!!!-- this was 5:30 p.m. Pacific), having to excuse myself from a dinner with my sister and godparents. I then slept until 9:45 this morning, which is basically unheard of for me. Although I thought I slept okay on the red-eye the previous night, all that unpacking and shopping (and maybe unconscious lack of sleeping) apparently wore me out!

After all that moving and stuff, it's so nice to be entirely on vacation (my friends with whom I'm trying to meet up say, "so what are you doing during the day?" to which I reply, "Nothing. Just working on meeting up with people. I'm totally free and flexible." :)). I am working hard, though, on a scrapbook album for our Africa trip. While I really enjoy putting these together and reliving all the memories, they certainly are labor-intensive. I stocked up on supplies before I left MN and thus have all the fun stuff to do it, but it has been a challenge so far to just get the pictures on, not even adding too much in the way of decorative additions. We'll see if I can get it finished before residency starts!

My good friend Laura recently sent me the link to the MS (Multiple Sclerosis Society) Homepage, as she (certainly NOT lazy), along with her husband, Tony, and mom will each be riding 150 miles over two days in September in/around New Bern, NC, as part of the MS 150 Bike Ride. This is an awesome cause that would be well worth it to support-- she has her own fundraising page and would LOVE to get more sponsors (hint, hint...)!


As far as my own laziness... I think I will head back and do some reading, perhaps in bed... Currently reading: The Double Bind, by Chris Bohjalian. My Mom says I have a deadline (can't take it out of town this weekend) since it's on 14-day loan (no renewal; already been out for a week or so-- she read it first) from the public library. I love this author and it's great so far!