Wednesday, April 30, 2008
I love my children. . . when they're sleeping.
Let me clarify. I love them when they're awake too. But right now, right this very minute, Quincy is screaming out her lungs in her crib and breaking my heart. We are sleep training her and I have to keep telling myself that it is for her own good. We actually have made serious headway with her, but WOW babies should just come knowing how to sleep. What's so hard about that? Seriously.
Once I was holding Avery as a young sleeping baby in my arms as I talked to a bank teller and I commented that there is nothing better than a sleeping baby. That young teller gave me the dirtiest look, as if thinking that I am so put out by my children that I only like them lying in slumber. But I think any mother can understand my sentiment. It can be a long process to get a baby to sleep. It can involve crying and rocking and nursing and so on. You know when your baby is tired, but they need convincing. So there is definitely a moment of "phew" when your child falls asleep. And then there's that whole surreal transformation when all of the sudden he or she is an angel. I'm not talking 'a cute, serene child'. I'm talking an out of this world celestial little being. There is such a pureness and peace to that sleeping baby that I have seen no where else.
Oh, by the way, 40 eternal minutes later, Quincy is asleep.
As I said, we are trying to sleep train Quincy. She went from waking about 6 times a night to sleeping through 3 full nights. Considering that Avery is still not sleep trained, I didn't know babies really could do that! I mean, I've heard... You see, I have a threshold. Any attempts we made with Avery were bailed on because he far exceeded my threshold. It felt like we were torturing him with no results. And I'm not stupid. I know it takes consistency and determination, but I swear Avery is one of a kind. I need to read a book on strong willed children. He was born that way. If I told him to eat candy, he'd eat vegetables. When I tell him to go to time out, he yells back, "No, you go time out!" Sometimes he pushes Quincy and then runs straight to time out himself. I'm pretty sure it's a calculated decision that time out is worth the prize. Very rarely I threaten a swat on the butt as a last resort. He yells, "No, I spank myself." And in hilarious fashion, he proceeds to do just that. Good times. And most recently, I was holding Avery in my arms telling him how wonderful he is: "Avery, you are my favorite little boy. You are kind and smart and handsome. You love your Mommy and your Daddy. You love Quincy and you love Jesus." His response to this was, "I don't WANT to follow Jesus!" That came from the mouth of my incredibly defiant two year old! HILARIOUS... I think. Back to the sleep subject, when I do get Quincy to sleep, I hold my breath that Avery doesn't bang on the door or jump in her crib in both inadvertent and blatant attempts to wake her. Wow, nothing frustrates me more. But in his cuteness, Avery says, "Look! Baby's awake now!" Anyway, such frequent frequent frequent antics are yet another reason that sleep is so very welcome in our house!
By the way, she's awake now.
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About Me
- Summer's World
- Logan, UT
- So I used to think... I used to think it was my world. Maybe Michael thought it was his. But we have been re-educated. By a 4 year old and a 2 year old. It's their world. We live in it.
Birth of Child #1
He looked like a blue alien. Luckily it didn't stick. And thank goodness we didn't go with Michael's idea to name him based on what he looked like.
Birth of Child #2
Much less eventful, thank goodness! She was born with red hair and 2 teeth... and skin colored skin!
9 comments:
Oh geez, Avery and Parker sound like too peas in a pod! Let me know when you find the book on training defiant children. Parker just developed this new defiant personality since Drew was born....and yet I do look at him when he's asleep and think he's the best little boy in the world!
Hmmm, I wonder where Avery got the strong will from? I'm still thinking....:)
Stick with it girl! It's so dang worth it. It's better to have a baby that sleeps well and a toddler that doesn't, than to have a baby and a toddler that both don't. How's that for profound? :-)
Summer--I love, love love your blog! You make me laugh and I can actually picture your cute, freckled face saying all these things. You are a crack-up of a mother. Joshy and I just had our first and I am starting sleep training even though he is just 3 months old, but my little boy REFUSES to fall asleep in any way shape or form. Thus, he gets to cry it out. Most nights it's like 5 minutes, but once a week it's 40 minutes of hard crying and I sit outside his door and cry with him, but I know it's better b/c before this it would take us 3+ hours of rocking, walking, cuddling, nursing to get him to go down and then he wouldn't stay and he was BEYOND overtired. And last night, he slept from 7:15-5:45! Happy day! Anyway, to make a long story short: I AGREE, I LOVE A SLEEPING BABY. And I sure wish babies came out knowing how to sleep on their own. As a first time parent, I thought babies did know how. Some babies do. Mine sure doesn't. Ahh...good luck with everything--nursing, sleep training, motherhood! (This is Jessy by the way).
Malachi was like that too. In Dec. we did the walk back to bed thing. Whenever he woke up we let him cry til he came to get us. Then we walked him back to bed. It was horrible! But it finally worked after three nights and now he sleeps pretty great. It was really worth it. When he was younger we tried the cry to sleep thing. He cried for hours and I couldn't take it. We tried for three nights (with no improvement) and I finally gave up. There were a ton of people who said their kids cried for twenty min. That's bearable. Hours and hours was not.
summer--I love reading what you say because I can hear your voice and it is hilarious!
I feel your pain! I am thinking that Noah will be the only child of mine that will be able to take a nap in the afternoon with out being awakened by a older brother or sister... well at least he will after school starts next fall... For now he will be yanked from his basket to be kissed by his older and wiser brother Ammon... If he could just wait a bit longer to kiss him...
Congratulations! I'm so happy that the sleep training is working well with Quincy! Yeah, just keep going.....Oh, there are two great books out there for little Avery and Coralee's :)- they're both great! wished I'd read them sooner... Parenting the Strong-Willed Child: The Clinically Proven Five-Week Program for Parents of Two- to Six-Year-Olds [Revised and Updated Edition]
AND
The New Strong-Willed Child by James C. Dobson
There really is nothing like a sleeping baby! Hey, I put some pics of our house on my blog too, so if you want to check it out, you can. Hopefully I'll see you at the cooking club this week?
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