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Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Sleep

Some of the parenting experts seem to think you can "teach your child to sleep through the night." Based on personal experience, I kinda think it's baloney.

One would think that after three children, I'd have perfected the "teaching". Quite the opposite. Sleep patterns got progressively worse with each child. My oldest slept through the night at two weeks and has been doing so consistently ever since. Not much "teaching" involved there.

Maddie, on the other hand, is five years old and still only sleeps through the night about half the time. Sigh. The other half of the time, she gets up in the middle of the night (at least once) and wants to climb into our bed. If I let her, much tossing and turning ensues. Moan. I suppose I didn't do enough "teaching" when she was 2 weeks old.

It's 2:23 A.M. My sleep has been disturbed one too many times. Where are all those parenting experts when I need them?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I finally resorted to begging, with B. Also he got insulted when he would come and stand by my head in the middle of the night and I would wake up with a start. He would glare at me and yell FINE! and go back to his own bed.

Whatever works, I say :)

Anvilcloud said...

Make a semi comfortable spot on the floor for her. It gets her close to you but now too close. It worked for us.

Stephanie said...

Oh, you don't even know how much your post makes me feel better (and perhaps worse, knowing what the future may hold for us)! As you know, Sydney is a terrible sleeper, and I still remember a comment you gave me on a post I had written about her not-so-sleepy habits. You wrote something about Maddie not sleeping through the night much, and I thought, "She knows what I'm going through and she's a great mom!" It just took a whole load of guilt right off my shoulders.

Experts be damned. They were all using baby Tylenol on their kids.

Whippersnapper said...

Oh, we sort of had that problem. Then we solved it by buying her a bed that is, without exaggeration, at least fifty million hundred times more comfortable than ours.

Haven't seen her since..!

joyce said...

AMEN!
there's only so much we can take credit for as "good parenting".

Gina said...

I don't think people should be so resistant to how their children sleep via all the Ferber methods and such.

We stuck with what worked naturally for Mr. P and now he sleeps uninterrrupted through the night like a champ! Granted, it was a bit inconvienient at times to go with him, but that is what parenting is about!