Is Your Baby Overtired?

"I don't let my child's naps hinder
me from doing my grocery shopping!"

Sleep is under-emphasized in our society.  We burn the candle at both ends.  We work weekends.  Yet our kids are important to us, too, so we tote them around, taking them with us to Wal-mart at all times of the day and night and bringing them along to parties.  The general consensus is that you've got a "good sleeper" if your kid will crash anywhere.

The problem with this is the quality of sleep.  In a nutshell, sleep is a complicated state that occurs best when it's the right time.  Fluctuating hormones cause us all to enter sleep states and wake states throughout a 24 hour period (see the Napping Window).  It is possible to put a child to sleep during a wake state (although it will probably take a long time!) but because of the increased cortisol hormone, the sleep will not be as deep and the sleep period will probably be short.

All of that to say that, after 4 months of age, a routine helps to train a child's body when it's time to sleep. 

Just as important as the timing is the place.  Although she looks completely zonked, a soft blanket and a shopping cart are no substitute for her bed.  You're familiar with sleep cycles, right?  Fall asleep, get deeper into sleep, cycle up to a lighter sleep state, and then without waking, go back into a deeper sleep.  Many cycles per night.  The reason that still, quiet sleep is the most restorative is because the motion and the noise hinder getting into that deep sleep state.  Her mind is not able to rest.

I don't want to make anyone mad, but I do think that parents are sadly unaware of some facts about their child's sleep.  First of all, some things I've heard parents say.

•  My child just isn't the type to conform to a sleep routine.
•  My child doesn't need as much sleep as other children.
•  Our family is on the go.  It's best if our child just gets used to it now!

If you've found yourself thinking or saying something like this before, please consider some of these symptoms of over tiredness in babies and young children.

•  Waking grumpy vs. happy
•  Unable to play happily by themselves during their wake time

He crashed.  Kinda funny, but
really just kinda sad.

•  Unexplained fussing
•  Yawning or rubbing eyes a lot
•  Fidgety or spazzy
•  Easily startled
•  Irregular sleep patterns
•  Fights naps and/or bedtime
•  Random unexplained night wakings

•  Complains of headache or stomach ache
•  Seemingly not tired when you know they should be
•  Waking within minutes after being put down for a nap
•  Crashing randomly

Imagine what it feels like when you haven't gotten enough sleep.  Miserable, right?  What's work like the day after you haven't gotten enough sleep?  I'll skip to the chase because I think you get my drift.  A bad attitude and a hard-to-pin-down schedule today are the least of your concerns when your child is sleep deprived.  Weissbluth writes, "Small but constant deficits in sleep over time tend to have escalating and perhaps long-term effects on brain function."  Not to mention the affect sleep has on health.  Some long-term affects of a child who does not get healthy sleep can be decreased mental focus, insomnia, ADD and ADHD.  People take medicine and suffer from these ailments that might have never occurred had they been getting enough sleep.

Eliminating a child's sleep deficit is not easy, but anything you can do to help your child get more sleep (the right kind of sleep... still, quiet, consolidated, and regular) will benefit their health and development.  If you want to get started, you know the book I'll recommend.  I love to talk about this stuff (can you tell?) so please let me know if I can be of any support.

Giving Him the First Year, My Practice of Mothering

Click to read others' practices in Sarah's Practices of Parenting Carnival on Monday, February 6.

Sarah at Emerging Mummy asked her readers to share their practices of mothering.  She has a really awesome series on her own practices.  I loved the idea, but I didn't think I would submit anything myself.  It came to me today.  Ryan, my husband, was reminding me of a principle my great-grandmother talked to him about over Christmas: give them the first year.  My great-grandmother (My 7 1/2 month old son Declan's great-great at 89 years old!) was a little bit of an entrepreneur.  She had consignment shops, a house cleaning service, and she was involved at church over the years.  When she was a young mother, though, she put these things on hold to focus on her babies. 

I think about this principle whenever I feel outside pressure to compromise Declan's schedule.  For our family, giving him the first year translates to staying home a lot.  Babies need more sleep than most people (Americans?) think.  His feeding, nap, and bedtime routines are very important to me in order to maintain his comfort and sense of security.  I want to rock him in his nursery and for him to be able to sleep in his own bed, still and quiet and clean in a fresh diaper with his blanket and his white noise; I want him to know where he is when he wakes; I want him to know that I'll come to him with big smiles when he finishes a good nap.  These things are his to rely on and he can feel that all is safe and normal.

There are things that Ryan and I miss out on because of our dedication (some may call it obsession) to our son's routine.  We do make allowances for specific occasions and on Sundays for church (our service meets in the evening).  Although it would be nice to have more flexibility to run errands, have dinner parties with friends, or do other evening church functions, we believe we are doing something more important.  I don't know many other people with young babies that give up their pre-baby lifestyle.  I understand that decision and sadly I think it's a strong aspect of Western culture, but I can't honestly say I support it (even though it's none of my business).  My husband and I believe that through this temporary sacrifice (which, let's face it, is just the beginning -- you're a parent by the way!), he will grow into a healthier, happier, smarter, and self-controlled child.

OMG, we have a REAL baby!

I don't know if this happens to all new moms, but lately the fact that we have a real live baby, and yes we are really living this life, hits me like cold water to the face.  He does all of these famous baby things, like sitting up, shaking rattles, smiling and babbling, grabbing my face, hugging/kissing, etc.  He's starting to show preferences and opinion.  Sometimes he doesn't want to play in his jumper, he'd rather roll around on the floor.  And sometimes he wants be held and bounced.  Sometimes he is thrilled to be kissed on, and other times he just wants that object 6 inches out of reach and could care less about me. 

All of these things make him more and more of a real person to me.  Our relationship is awakening by leaps and bounds this month.  As Gail put it, my heart is "tied to his."  I miss him when he goes down for the night and it will be hours before I see him again (I don't miss him much during his 30 minute daytime naps...).  I love seeing him hold a toy close to his face, analyzing and calculating.  Then just a second later, wave his arms wildly and suddenly topple sideways. 

Despite the many times he's given me hope of his naps lengthening, he still takes only 30 minute naps for the most part.  He usually wakes up smiling, so I am assuming he's getting enough rest.  So it may be til he's 12-18 months til he starts taking long ones.  I'm finally beginning to accept it and realize that the occasional 2 hour nap does not indicate the breaking of a new normal.  Sheesh.

Nighttime sleep is mostly good.  We have improvements to make, and we've started using that darned ol' sleep training to get there.  After cereal, a bath, and one last feeding, he is either zonked and I can put him in his crib immediately or I rock him for a few minutes first.  We shoot for between 7:00 and 7:30 bedtime.  He goes down really easy, and life would be a dream, but 45 minutes later he winds up.  Ryan would go in there and burp him and calm him down for a second, and then we'd let him cry himself back to sleep.  It is tortuous.  The first night was an hour and a half, with Ryan going in there periodically to turn him over, rewrap him, and give him back his pacifier.  The second night we were encouraged when he cried only 45 minutes.  The third night, he cried for 6 minutes.  Fourth night, for 2 minutes.  We thought we were home free on the 5th night, but he cried for an hour and a half again.  We realized I had forgotten to give him his acid reflux medicine, so we got him up and let him stay up so we could wait the allotted amount of time and then feed him one more time and put him back to sleep.  That was last week.

This week I'm working on being  ALOT more consistent.  I'm taking Weissbluth's advice finally (he has always been right for us, I don't know why I try to experiment a bunch before realizing this again and again).  After 4 months, babies can start adjusting their sleep rhythms to a clock schedule (before 4 months, its best just to watch and respond to their drowsy signals--but have a set bedtime always!)  The past 3 days, Declan wakes between 6:15 and 7:30 (I'm bad, I should be waking him up at 7!), he takes his first nap at 9-9:30am, then 11-11:30am, 1:30-2:00pm, then 4-4:30pm.  And of course bedtime is 7-7:30.  Sometimes I'm tempted to put him down early if he's being a grump, or keep him up if he seems more wakeful, but I am curious to see how a fairly rigid schedule works for him since we've never tried it very consistently so I'm standing firm!  Hopefully between that and the sleep training, he'll stay down after bedtime until his feeding around 2:30am.  And okay, a small part of me still hopes his naps will suddenly grow longer with routine...

I've changed up his feeding routine, too.  I was totally over-zealous with the solid foods thing.  He keeps them down so well and enjoys the cereal so much (plus the whole novelty of it) that I jumped ahead and gave him 2 feedings a day as cereal when you're supposed to start out with one.  I justified it because we started solids kinda late -- at almost 5 months.  I didn't really tie it together because it was gradual - his feedings grew shorter and fussier, but oddly, he wanted to eat more often (I still don't really understand that).  So last week I stopped giving him his mid-morning cereal and just kept the evening feeding.  Within a day, his nursing sessions were more prolonged and relaxed.  His "I'm hungry" and "I'm full" signals are not ambiguous anymore since instead of fussing 30 seconds into the feeding, he will nurse good and then stop, smile, and if I offer him more he will either do so or push away.  So I'm super happy with that.

He's still dealing with the reflux.  Last week I reached 4 weeks of dairy elimination and took him off of the Prevacid to see if things had improved.  After being off of the medicine for a day, the symptoms came rushing back and it was clear that dairy was not the culprit.  I am changing pediatricians, so maybe we'll get some fresh ideas and a GI specialist referral.  Our other pediatrician is an excellent and qualified doctor, it's just that he makes me feel stupid.  He's kinda snippy.  When I felt the Zantac was not working for us, I asked him about what I should do.  He just said, "Take him off of it."  And I was like... well, what about the reflux?  I felt like I was having to drag information out of him.  Anyway, I've always kind of thought that, and that last experience was just enough to make me think we might do better with another doctor.

Doing better all the time, for the most part.  Gotta go make some supper.  Another day gone, but it was a productive one (c: