I have been a father for 5 months and 10 days. With that said I think it is fair for me to say that I am one of the least qualified people here to make any comments on parenting. Then again for the past year, since we knew we were expecting, other people have been telling me how to raise my kid.
Those people really tick me off. It is with that in mind that each time I am up to write a fatherhood column here on the WGOM I will present something I will do if I ever add to my herd. This will be directly influenced by what I did wrong with the Calf. So take my write ups to be what not to do with your children.
First off, I am going to see to it that our unborn child, herein known to as Kirby, sleeps in his crib from the first night. When the calf was born we weren't really sure where to put him down for sleep. All we knew that was wherever we laid him down he was going to wake up every two hours. So, we did what was easiest for us. Of the many hand me down baby items we received for the Calf he seemed to fall asleep best in his Calming Vibrations Chair. So we set the chair up on the coffee table next to the couch in our living room and let him sleep there. Since he woke up every two hours anyway, I would just stay up until around 1am, wake up Ms Buffalo and then she would sleep on the couch, feeding him and changing his as necessary until around 6am when I would begin getting ready for work. She would sneak in about a hour nap and then take care of him until I got home for work. Rise, lather, repeat.
At about two months the Calf got a little bigger he began sleeping though the night-- assuming he was in his chair. I mean 10-12 hours straight though. After being awoken every two hours by a crying baby this was a revelation. We got to share a bed again. Now, we love our baby but it was nice to be able to snuggle up in our hay stack once again so we just let him stay in his chair. We didn't want to jinx it.
At around three months the Calf kept growing, as children are wont to do. We commented on how he was getting bigger and bigger and before you know it he wouldn't be able to sleep in his chair much longer. We had a bassinet that we would try to put in our room but it just wouldn't take. He had to sleep in his chair. We joked about how he couldn't spend the rest of his life sleeping on a coffee table. Ms Buffalo thought this quip to be especially funny because there may or not be a photograph of me in my early twenties sleeping on a coffee table. Either way, we figured it was best to not ruin a good thing and we had better let him just sleep in his Calming Vibrations. We did however take the batteries out of the chair. He didn't seem to mind and I was happy to not be spending money on batteries anymore.
When he crossed the four month barrier he was over two feet tall and closing in on 20 pounds. His chair is graded for 25 pounds so we were starting to get a little bit worried. We would give him his bath, feed him, put him down in his Calming No-Longer Vibrations Chair, let him get to sleep and try to carry him into the crib. This lasted for about three nights as we soon decided, screw it, let's just let him sleep in his stupid chair. I don't want to keep getting up out of bed.
5 months has now come and gone and the kid still won't sleep anywhere except this stupid chair. His butt is on the ground in it. It doesn't even bounce anymore. He has gotta be at least 22 pounds now and this chair is no longer practical for sleeping.
With that said I just spent the last four hours trying to get him to sleep in his crib before remembering that I had to write a a column about being a dad for the WGOM. As you would imagine, I put him into his Calming- I Don't Vibrate, Bounce, or Do Anything Anymore- Chair and he fell right asleep. I am sure that he will sleep for the next 8 hours.
So remember above when I said other parents giving advice is a pain in my neck? Yeah, I take it all back. If anyone has any tips on how to make a kid sleep in his crib I am all ears.
Easy.
On the first night you bring the child home from the hospital...
(Sorry. I couldn't resist. Great post.)
Yep, Time Machine would work well.
If I had to to do all over again, I would have for sure. It was what we get for taking the easy way out. I recently started a new job where I don't have to go into work until 1pm. I figure now would be as good of a time as any since I have a little bit more possible sleep hours to play with.
It was just so easy!
I would recommend stopping whatever you need to stop cold turkey. Get rid of the chair and tough it out for a few
nightsweeks.yea, what AMR said. And you will probably need to strap Ms. Buffalo down, with a leather strap in her mouth to chomp on. Because the kid is gonna scream for hours.
Have you tried placing the chair in the basinette? Maybe first step would be to adjust to sleeping in a new location before step two of sleeping in a new position.
Incremental change might help. My only experience in this field is Omar, but when he got to the point he was sleeping through the night without needing potty breaks, I didn't want his crate in my bedroom any more (He snores like a mofo). I just moved it a couple of feet a day until it was in by the kitchen table. It worked pretty well.
breathing issues seem to abound with pug-nosed breeds; I wondered if snoring was part of that. Good idea, though -- making changes in small steps can do the trick. I wonder if the bouncy chair can be leaned back in stages until it's almost flat?
Oh yeah, snoring is a part of that. You can usually hear him breathing if he's just sitting there, and I have to be careful exercising him too much too quickly because he can't breathe too well once he gets worked up. Once he falls asleep, it's a full blown snore. First night at Thanksgiving at mo chailín's* house, he kept the entire basement up. He slept on the sun porch after that.
*I'm 100% sure that's not grammatically correct, but I'm not to possessives yet.
Once he falls asleep, it's a full blown snore.
Yes, yes it is. It wasn't that loud though.
I can attest to that, we have 3 Boston Terriers and they all snore to varying degrees. Oddly the Mrs. says their snoring is comforting, while mine (I snore?) keeps her awake.
We put the chair in the crib a couple of times, yeah. The thing is he is getting too long for the chair and he keeps kicking the hard plastic parts of the chair and waking himself up during the course of the night so he isn't even sleeping through the night as well as he used to.
on the plus side, maybe the chair will become so uncomfortable in the near future that the crib will be a welcome reprieve...?
It was EAR who suggested the "cry it out" methods, so I never had to strap her down to keep to the "rules".
Gwen slept really well for the first 4-6 months, but gradually, she won't let us set her down without waking up and balling. Then she started waking up in the middle of the night and won't be consoled, and so on. After far too many nights spent holding her and sleeping in a rocking chair, we ended up doing a modified "Cry It Out" method, which was really painful for about 3 days, but after that, she would only cry for a few minutes when we set her down, and now we can put her to bed with her mostly sleepy and she'll do the rest by herself.
Here is a site which details the basics of this method. If it looks interesting, I would suggest tossing the chair and setting up a new routine. It'll be painful, but if you are consistent and your Calf is anything like our Gwen, it'll make life easier in the long run.
We went through the same thing with the vibrating chair being the easiest way to get the kid to sleep. Once we got her transferred to the crib, we found letting the kid cry it out is the way to go. There's a much different sound to the cry of "I'm hungry" or "I'm stuck" than the sound of "I don't wanna sleep here".
Ms Buffalo has a video monitor that makes the crying seem much louder and more disturbing towards sleep than it might acually be. I wonder if we turned the volume down on the monitor, so that we could only hear shrieks rather than whines, if they would help us out.
I will give that a shot tonight.
Yeah, I forgot how much the baby monitor can accentuate the screaming- my youngest has been out of the crib for a whole year and a half, and he slept so well we didn't use a monitor much anyhow. If he woke up for something, he was ticked off enough that we could hear him easily.
Our first was our most difficult, mostly because we were working through this stuff on the fly just like you are. I don't think you did anything wrong by not forcing the Calf to sleep in the crib from the beginning, since you realized that eventually he will have to move out of his chair. We got to the point with the chair that we were getting worried she was going to flip it over on top of herself, either in her sleep or when she woke up, and that was why we decided to make the move back to the crib.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu3_2w4ff6Q
My wife has the habit of snoring when she first goes to sleep, until she gets into a more deeper sleep*. Our first few nights were rough because Runner daughter's snuffling would prevent Mrs. Runner from sleeping deeply, and Mrs. Runner's snoring would cause Runner daughter to sleep fitfully and to snuffle. Everyone slept a whole lot better (but not long enough) when we moved Runner daughter to the crib in the next room. I'm not even sure that we needed the monitor at night, as she wasn't all that far away.
* if anyone says I shared this, I will deny it vehemently.
Famished Pete update:
for my part, i’ve been getting uninterrupted, full night sleeps all week long. of course, it helps when your kid’s in the NICU.
Pete’s had a rough week so far. despite being a 9 pounder, he apparently got a lot of blood in his lungs on the way out. i thought something seemed a little off after he came out, and thankfully the nurses picked up on that too and got him up to the nursery quickly. once up there, the docs couldn’t quite figure out what was going on, but they knew it was enough to transfer him into the NICU. long story short, he was gradually stepped up from an oxygen mask, to breathing tubes, to a ventilator, and an oscillatory ventilator where he remained for a few days while his lungs cleared out. thankfully, he’s gone back down those steps in the last few days, and is breathing on his own once again. last night, i got to hold Pete for more than 20 seconds i did after his birth for the first time.
the docs have been pretty surprised at his progress. i’m not sure if that’s because he’s been properly fast in his recovery, or if things were more serious than they let on. they claim there should be no lasting effects, and i guess i believe them in that respect, but i’ll be keeping a weary eye on things as time goes by. it’s been a rough and trying experience, but i believe things are on the up and up. if he continues on his upward path, he should hopefully be home in a matter of days.
and i’ll be putting him to sleep in his crib on his first night home, of course 😉
best wishes to you and the Family Slimfast, hj.
That sounds like it was probably a few rough days for you and the missus, hj. Glad Pete's pulling through OK, I bet you can't wait until he's home and you're only getting to sleep in two-hour naps.
Best wishes, jobu and fam.
Petes stick together, good luck with 'im.
thanks, all. just got back from the hospital (which is thankfully only 10 minutes away). everything's still going fine. he thanked us for our worry and care by pissing on peckish jane. she swore he was smiling at her while he did it. that's my son, all right...
FThitmanLT, thanks for the great parenting post. I will most definitely take it to heart - Kernel is due in less than 6 weeks! Spent the first part of my afternoon looking for childcare; a little light reading (WGOM) for a break, and now on to the pediatrician search...say, any suggestions for either of these pursuits?
For pediatricians, we asked my wife's doctor where she took her kids - easy peasy and we've always been happy.
We did the same thing for the pediatrician. It has worked great for us.
I know the NW burbs aren't your neighborhood, but I'm quite fond of Dr. Andrew Rzepka. He doesn't get exceited about hitting growth charts or other things, his ideas seem to be a laid-back "kids are different." Always reassuring and positive and has a great manner with the kids. I'm always disappointed when I find out that he's on vacation or whatever and we've got another (capable but not Rzepka) doctor. My wife wants to start going to a new clinic that's probably five miles closer (out of six), but I don't want to stop seeing this doctor.
Thanks gents!
Replace that chair with a swing, and you've got the story of our 1st born.
Best advice is to put them in the crib and let them cry it out. We did it several times and ended up caving quite a bit. However, one night we just stuck with it, knowing that he'd be all right. After a couple days, the crying got less and less and eventually he slept just fine in the crib.
Now, when the baby can start getting out of the crib/bed, that's a whole different adventure.