Science Experiment

Having kids is like one giant science experiment that starts at conception. Actually raising the children leads to all sorts of new complications. In order to get results which even roughly approximate the desired outcome, variables must constantly be tweaked. The most recent experiments in our house involve sleep, or rather, the lack thereof.

For the past two weeks, L has slept less and less. At first he gave up nighttime sleeping. And eventually he gave up daytime sleeping to, to the point our little rock star was seriously sleeping no more than a few hours a day with one two-hour nap during the day, and a couple of 60-90 minute chunks at night. It has been crazy.

In our first attempt at getting them to sleep, we decided to introduce solid food. (Just to be fair to my man, in most instances, particularly where the results went awry, when I say "our" I mean "my" attempt.) So two weeks, ago, we started solids, even though the boys weren't showing quite all the signs of readiness for solids. I already wrote about the first oatmeal experiment. It was not so great. So then I introduced carrots. The boys loved carrots. That was good. So I added baby oatmeal. They liked that too, and L, in particular wolfed it down. That seemed good. Until he was screaming in pain at 12:30 in the morning two nights running. Apparently his little body was not quite ready to digest oatmeal. Scratch that.

So the next attempt involved weaning. I hadn't planned on weaning this early (natural weaning does not actually occur until after 18-24 months, and even the American Academy of Pediatrics advises against weaning before one year) but L did seem to be showing less interest in the breast, so perhaps it was time to fatten him up with bottles of formula. So we tried that. Instead of a cozy nursing session after I tucked R into bed at night, I passed him off to his dad. He started chugging 6 ounces. This seemed great. And he even slept for 6 hours one night after these bottles. But once we started the bottles at night, he started getting up for an hour and a half in the middle of the night and refusing to go back to sleep. He wanted to play, despite it being dark and quiet in the house.

So after two weeks of this drama, I was a complete grouch-a-saurus. R even picked up on this. Friday night I overheard her playing in the tub with her families of fish and ducks. One of the babies (I don't know if it was the fish or ducks, as they all cohabitate) was asking its mommy for something. Then the mommy said, "No. Mommy really tired." Ouch. But this at least gave me insight as to why R has been such a terror lately and has even had some major potty-training setbacks. I've been giving her no attention.

At that point I still didn't know what to do. R was a terror, and L wasn't sleeping. (Fortunately, M has been doing relatively okay, despite now having almost four teeth.) I never would've guessed that L would actually tell me the answer. Sunday morning, around 3:00 a.m., I was again unable to get him to sleep. We were sitting on the couch, and I was trying to give him a bottle. He drank about two ounces and then started screaming. In my frustration, I asked him what he wanted, not knowing I would get a response. He then started saying, "Boo, boo, boo!" and beating my chest. So I asked him if he wanted booba, our term for nursing, and he greedily latched on. He calmed down, so I fed him, then tried to tuck him in. More screaming. Finally nestled him in bed between me and Jeff. He snuggled in so that his whole body was touching mine and then passed out. We officially have another hippie baby.

So yesterday morning, I was back to reading Dr. Sears. I had only paid moderate attention to the info online, after I read one of the strategies for getting your child to sleep through the night was wearing a nightgown to bed.* But in reading some of the basic strategies in The Baby Book, his advice didn't seem that crazy. Things started coming together in my head. L associates nursing with cuddling and spending time with me. His teeth had been hurting, which made him not want to breastfeed, or eat in any way. My attempts at feeding him solids had taken away our play time in the evening. So he had been getting up all night just to have some cuddle/play time with me, because he knew I would hold him to keep him from screaming and waking up his siblings.

So I devoted yesterday to spending time with him. At it wasn't even all that hard. Yesterday morning, R decided she wanted to make a cake for Father's Day. While we were baking, I brought the boys in the dining room with us rather than leaving them in the living room like I usually do. While the boys only moved 8-10 feets, this seemed to make a huge difference. M happily jumped in his jumperoo the whole time, and L gnawed on a toy while sitting in his new bumbo. While I cleaned up, I put L in the sling. At lunch time, I needed to pick up milk and get fried chicken for our Father's Day lunch. In the past, I've always just taken R with me to run errands so that she had special time, but this time I took L too. I thought R would complain, but as we walked through the parking lot at Walmart, for the first time ever, she happily held my hand rather than whining to be carried. She even commented that she was just like Zoe (from Baby Blues) and then she recited the comic in which Wanda tells Zoe she can't carry her because she is carrying baby Hammie. I was worried about L missing his morning nap, not that he has much of a schedule, but he even slept for 20-30 minutes in the car.

Having gone on an adventure with me, in the afternoon, L miraculously took a nap. There was actually over an hour in which all three kids were sleeping in the day time. I'm not sure that has ever happened before. It was lovely! At dinner time, he nursed for an hour. This seemed good, but as bedtime loomed, I was still wary. After baths, he nursed for 45 minutes again, just like he used to do. When it came time to put him to bed, he started fussing, so I laid down on my bed near him. (The boys are still sleeping in our room.) Within 15 minutes, he was sound asleep. Last night, he only woke up twice. Each time I was able to easily nurse him back to sleep. Without him getting up all night, M slept much better, only getting up once at 2:00 to eat. Because we hadn't been up all night, his dad was rested enough to give him a bottle then, which he drank and passed out again. By the time the boys got up at 5:45 for breakfast, I was rested enough to actually get up for the day.

Of course, I have to work all day today, so who knows what this will mean for tonight. But, at least for one night, the science experiment went exactly as planned.

*In case this has you completely baffled, Dr. Sears is assuming that your child sleeps with you, you are a mom, and you sleep topless so the little one can nurse whenever he or she wants at night.