toddler / sleep solutions

SLEEEEEEEEP. 

Sleep deprivation is a real thing. Staying up late to study for an exam in college was nothing to me. I could get through all my classes and workouts on maybe four hours of sleep, sometimes less. Nowadays I feel like I need a full four DAYS of sleep to catch up.

New moms will hear "sleep when the baby sleeps". Maybe you can sleep during the day, but I can't. I need complete darkness, a cool room, and absolute silence. During the first year of my son's life the overwhelming majority of his naps were taken ON me. Part of that is because he nursed to sleep, part of that is because I was too scared to put him down and wake him. He's almost a year and half old and we STILL don't have a crib for him. Well, we have the crib, it's just in unfinished pieces in our garage.

Now that we have another baby on the way and Levi is close to weaning, my husband and I thought it was time to transition our son out of our bed and into his own. While we I have enjoyed the extra nighttime snuggles, my growing belly needs more room! I rearranged our master bedroom on a whim, placed his crib mattress on the floor at the foot of our bed with a light blanket (he hates being under the covers...weirdo) and over the last two months we have been gently acclimating our son to his own sleep space.

17 month old Levi's sleep schedule varies a bit from day to day, but for the most part he gets about ten hours of night sleep and a two to three hour nap. A typical day for us starts around 7am with breakfast shortly after waking and a diaper change after that. If there are errands for the day we knock them out in the morning, otherwise Levi plays for a few hours. Nap time usually starts somewhere between 10 and 11am and on average lasts for two hours. Lately I've been able to lay him on his bed and use this time to rest, catch up on reading, or tidy the house up a bit--a huge difference from where we were six months ago. Nap ends and playtime begins while we wait for daddy to come home so we can eat dinner and I can work with little to no whiny interruptions. Daddy gives Levi a bath and they hang out while I get through my emails and any pressing work stuff. Since I have to work until nine every night, we tend to let Levi dictate his actual bedtime. Some nights he doesn't go to bed until right at nine, other nights he's out by 7pm. While Levi often nurses before bedtime, there are nights where my husband rocks him to sleep. One of us will hold him for a little while to make sure he's OUT, and then we lay him down.

The length of time Levi spends sleeping on his own is unpredictable. He's slept through the night a couple of times, and it was glorious, but mostly he only makes it for five or six hours, if that. Still, that's five or six hours I'm not being touched by the toddler! I am amazed at how in tune I am with his sleep noises. He can wake me from a deep sleep with little more than a sigh (meanwhile my husband is snoozing away, taking up more than half the bed). Some nights Levi will cry out when he wakes by himself, other nights he just crawls up into bed beside me. I don't ever bother putting him back. He will only be little for a little while and I want to hold him for as long as I can, even if it means losing some sleep.

Overall, I'm pleased with how our "sleep training" plan is going. We'll get there, eventually, but until our son is ready my husband and I will slowly encourage him to be more independent. Fingers crossed it happens in less than twenty weeks!