Memorial Weekend

From Bambini

This weekend the boys met their uncle, aunt and niece. These babies are very cute.

Pete, their uncle, got to hold Nico after he ate with the hope that he would put him to sleep (or at least keep him busy so I could prepare dinner) . In fact Nico went to sleep almost immediately. Unfortunately Charlotte, Pete's two year old daughter did not like his attention being diverted and had a screaming fit. I can't imagine how we are going to deal with two of them doing that.

I am discovering how hard it is to slide your sleeping schedule around by four hours or so. Sometimes I have to be available in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon. If I go to bed at noon I can get up at 8pm. If I go to bed at 6am I can be ready for an appointment at 3pm. I cant do both. This weekend I have been moving back to the early bed time because we have a pediatrician appointment this week. For three days over the weekend I could only sleep five hours before waking up. Its hard and it takes days.

We have begun a new schedule to reduce the hours the nanny is here. The idea is to try to get the babies to sleep through the night. This has not been possible so far. I have read many books that deal with this issue and one with the unmitigated gall to title itself "12 hours sleep in 12 weeks". Rubbish.

I'm sure the title sells books, but the reality is very different. So after realizing we were a little naive in expecting this to happen so soon, we began exploring internet chat forums on the subject. I find that these are about the best sources for real information as people are generally very quick to point out the nonsense in another's posting. The forum has to have a critical mass of people to be effective, but when it is, there are usually a few threads that deal with hot issues that most people have contributed too. This is the meat.

After a little googling I found just what I was looking for at http://www.babywhispererforums.com/
This has a whole section devoted to the subject and it rapidly became very obvious that this is one of the most difficult transitions for toddlers.

In our cursory examination of this black art, we solicited advice from friends and strangers in Costco (always a reliable barometer of what not to do). It seems there are basically two camps. The let them scream till they go unconcious, or work with them using a variety of techniques so they do not feel abandoned. Well that's my read on it anyway.

We are definately in the second camp. We have gone to great lengths to empower the babies so that when they communicate, they feel heard and don't escalate the need for attention or to get a basic need met to the level of screaming. So far we seem to be doing quite well. This may change, and when Nico gets over tired he will start this crying for no good reason as a default behavior.

We have several options for this, most of which involve stimulation (not with a cattle prod) but courtesy of YouTube and the Rhino song,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOvIot-i6rY&feature=related
or a walk around the neighborhood.

There is a very big difference between lazy crying and full on screaming. It seems to us that babies scream when they feel disconnected or dis-empowered, and the consequences of that we see every day in the petty desire for people to tell other people what to do as a form of empowerment. Just because they are small does not mean they do not experience the same feelings adults do.

We want these children to feel heard at the very minimum, and even though they might not get their way, that they have been empowered despite their obvious physical disadvantage. This goes to the core of the issue I had at the hospital with nurses wanting to do needle sticks every day. If someone wanted to stick them, there would need to be a good reason. Just because the babies are powerless doesn't make them less worthy of a good reason.

So now we have to navigate the shark infested waters of sleep scheduling while providing the support they need. This is doubly difficult because its hard to know just how long they can go on one tank full of milk. We try to fill them up at bed time, but just as the notice in the gas station says the babies say "please do not top off".

In reading ther concept of a "core night" caught my attention. This is the idea that if they go 8 hours without eating just once, then the bar is raised to that level, meaning they have demonstrated they can do it. Well we saw Nico go six hours a few weeks ago after they got over saturated at a kids birthday party in the park, but Luca is still waking up every four hours.

The difference is probably due to Nico's weight advantage. Despite starting off weighing less, he has been packing away the calories and now looks like the Michelin man. Just walking around the house with him sitting in one hand is like a set of reps at the gym on the bicep isolation machine. I end up in sweat within five minutes. Luca is much lighter.

The good news is that Nico put in a 9 1/2 hour sleep last night after he got very tired when Barbara took them for a mystery tour of the neighborhood with a friend for an hour. I think she must have tied them behind the car because they came back with their hair blown in all directions and a wild look in their eyes not sure whether to cry from relief or the shock and awe of it all.

Regardless, this is a solid nights sleep, and we got there without any serious drama. This week when we weigh them at the Doctor's office we will see what weight of baby equal a stomach big enough for a nights sleep. Hopefully when Luca reaches the same weight he will be capable of the same feat and I can go back to a sleep schedule that resembles the living, not the living dead.

The babies have been getting very alert recently. They smile and laugh when they catch you eye and Luca has been delivering long monologs in baby talk if you interact with him. He also laughs a lot. They both have very developed a clear way of indicating when they want to do another tour of the house in the "Prince Boo seat" ( created by my hands in front of me so the arms of the throne provide a place for them to rest their arms) No matter what the problem, once in the throne they are ready for the adventure.