I worried a lot about the "right" way to sleep a baby with my first born. I really wanted to get it right. Do it well.
And the funny part is, it wasn't for a sane reason. It wasn't so I could get sleep. It was so I wouldn't ruin her.
By the time I had my second, I could care less what the sleep theories said, I didn't believe in them anymore. And I didn't think I could ruin my kids as people because they didn't sleep a certain way.
And for the first 6 months of my mothering two, I didn't feel an ounce of mommy doubt on the matter.
That said, Ruby was born a fantastic sleeper. And Jasmine was feeling good and sleeping well at that stage.
Then....
Ruby learned to stand up in the crib, and there was no sleep theory to fit that.
She had already learned to go to sleep by then. And I mean like a major champion. Easy peasy. Nurse, lay her down awake, and out by herself. Didn't wake many times til morning. And none of that was forced. She just nailed it. But anyway, she had the "skills" to sleep.
But once she learned to stand, she was too busy to sleep.
And well, no solutions from any camp worked. She doesn't cry it out. I didn't believe moms who said that before. Because Jasmine would cry it out. I hated doing it, but we got to a point where we needed it and it took about 3 days (like books say) and then she was better.
But Ruby? Ruby can cry for a whole night -- and not once waver. And she doesn't seem to be more tired later to make the next night easier.
(Also, sleep books tend to operate outside the realm of what crying it out can do to a sleeping sibling -- read: wake them up too and get you a real mess on your hands!)
Ruby also didn't sleep in our bed after she learned to stand up. Too busy laughing and playing all night long. She doesn't sleep in a pack and play near us. She doesn't want to be bothered with this business of sleep. She's a smarty pants who wants to keep at all she is learning. And the only way to get her to sleep was by shear force of straight-jacket-arms in a rocking chair for a long stinking time, multiple times a night (because once she woke up again, she was back to standing.)
Eventually standing stopped being the marvel that it once was and things got easier again.
But sleep books never concede to teething. They always act like its all just pretend, they will still sleep if you do it right. That's the lamest thing I've ever heard. And I don't know why doctors and books say crap like that. Teething is like having the flu. And I know. I went to the doctor with a mystery illness when I was getting my wisdom teeth in high school, and they thought I had Mono. (Until the test came back negative and a wisdom tooth popped out.) They saw I was sick. It hurt so bad and messed me up so much I almost passed out at one point. Teeth pressing their way out of gums is rough stuff.
And Ruby isn't an easy teether. Teething is the only time she isn't happy. And She's very UNhappy when teething. And her mouth likes to try and get it all done at once. She tends to work on four teeth at a time. (Which may be why she's such a terrible teether.)
And...
another thing.
Sleep books just talk about babies.
And so you start thinking, well, if I just make it past that stage, I'll sleep again.
Sleep books don't talk about the time your two year old gets RSV and wakes up not able to breath in the middle of the night and how you will need to take her to the hospital.
And how that means for a year or more they won't have great lungs, so they will wake up wheezy for what seems like forever. (You can't sleep train that away.)
They don't address bloody noses in the middle of the night. You can't leave them alone with those.
And sleep books can have all the theories they like about when preschool kids get scared in the middle of the night, or just don't feel sleepy anymore at 4am, or worry about their teething sister at 3am, but none of those theories actually get me any sleep. Sleep training doesn't cure that. And family bed doesn't make it work. And nothing in the undefined in-between has really helped me.
My solution has been to tell Blake, "Once our kids are in school...our house will still look this messy, and I will still barely cook dinner, because I will be asleep all day, every day, while they are in class to make up for this madness."
Ruby is getting four molars right now.
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