Week
of February 5, 2003
Owen was well this week!
We had a great weekend together. Not the kind of weekend that makes good copy, but one that was relaxing and ordinary and filled with family time. We laughed and ran around. We puttered outside and poked at the snow, we went to breakfast and ran errands, we went for drives in the car while Owen napped. We hung around our toy-strewn living room and frolicked with Owen as he climbed over us, we chased him, we played This Little Piggy and we changed many diapers. I'm always surprised after spending a lot of time on the floor with him how I haven't managed to have my nose broken or a black eye from all the clambering over my shoulder, over my head and onto the couch. In the evening, Scott and I had time to do a little reading and vegging at night, in between our efforts to keep our hovel in line. We didn't have to be in any particular place as any particular time, and it was lovely.
Sleeping
We're still trying to shift Owen's routine. Although our pediatrician said that most children Owen's age sleep from 7 to 7:30, he's been an early riser from the beginning. Reading books by doctors working for pediatric sleep disorder institutes, the message was "early bedtimes promote better and longer sleep." We were told to watch for Owen's sleep cues, and set bedtime from there. We wanted to catch the wave of his sleepiness and we got pretty good at it. Most of the time, he'd happily settle down and go to sleep quickly.
The trade off is that he's been going to bed around 6:30, and wakes pretty close to 4 or 4:30 each morning. If he slept eleven and a half hours, from 6:30 to 6, it would be great. 6:30 to 5 would be okay! But 4 or 4:30? Whew, we're tired. We've tried letting him cry in the morning, but it's not like little cries or banter, it becomes heart-wrenching wails. And it's very hard to inflict that on neighbors who are most certainly asleep at that hour. And it's especially difficult since we normally get up pretty early, by 6. Owen is very willing to cry for 2 hours until (to his mind) we relent and pick him up. He'll wake up this early no matter when we put him to bed. There have been times he's been up until 1, and STILL he got up at 4 or 4:30. The only time he tends to sleep later is if, for some reason (never good), he's up between 1 and 3:30.
I think many people feel we put him to bed too early, and that's the problem behind his early rising. We've been torn about ignoring his cues, but we're worn down and getting a little desperate to change his patterns. We bit the bullet and pushed him past the point he starts to tire, at least slightly. We've shifted his bedtime to 7. It's actually been nice to see him more after work (not just in the wee hours), but now we seem to have an overtired little boy. No longer does he sit still for reading stories, he has to be up and playing with his trains, or running back and forth in the apartment. We worried he was getting too keyed up to sleep, but in spite of all the last minute activity, he seems to settle down after 20 minutes of kicking his mattress and babbling to himself. We can live with that.
It's possible that he's just hitting a stage where he's fighting bedtime, and it's not just that he's overtired. It's no coincidence that he's struggling to get off the couch to play with his stuff. He loves his trains, he doesn't want to stop playing. And the closer we get to the last bedtime book ("Time for Bed"), the more wound up he seems. He's tried handing us other books sometimes, could he already be using a delaying tactic? Has he just become unwilling to let go of the day?
Now that we've been using the new bedtime for a little while, another thing has become perfectly clear: he gets up at exactly the same time. In fact, for a little while he seemed to be sleeping a little worse and waking up more often and earlier. But even on a good night of solid sleep, he's still up by 4:30. We're continuing the test to see if he can settle into a new pattern, but we're not hopeful. Are we now just going to be guilty about depriving him of another ½ hour of sleep? Or will he relent and sleep just a little longer. And what will happen when the days get longer and it's lighter even earlier?
Reading
As part of our attempt to entice him to sit still for reading at night, we've reorganized what we're reading to him. Boynton doesn't capture him as much, so we're doing new books that have singing, or more going on. The new pictures and new stories sort of capture him. Certainly he's more interested than in the old stuff, but he'd still rather play with his trains. At most, he'll come over to look at a particularly beloved page (the Apple Muffin page in One Hungry Monster, The llamas snuggling under the moon in Is Your Mama a Llama, Little Nutbrown Hare being held by Big Nutbrown Hare). He still loves his books (just not before bed) and he brings various stories over to us all the time when we're with him. He seems to notice much more on the page, and gazes at things more intently. He loves seeing pictures of the moon (and I think he realizes they're pictures of the moon outside, which he loves to see). He recognizes many, many animals (along with Thomas Trains). I think there must be at least 50 things that he can point to on request.
Noises
We're delighted to hear him say "Moo" (it goes back and forth between "MMMM" and "Moo"). He has said Meow once or twice, and he loves saying "Cat" or "Kitty Cat" (he says it more than everything else combined, he starts to say it on the way home from daycare, as though he can't wait to get home to see them). He's done a good approximation of Elephant. When he sees birds he goes "tweet tweet" in a good approximation of the real thing. He's pretty clear about saying "I want that" or "I want down." Scott was playing peek a boo with him, and Owen managed to play back and say "Boo!" at exactly the right point. When we stand him on the changing table at Daycare, to get his snowsuit on, he grins widely and says "I'm tall!!"
He seems to have fastened on to "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?" and now "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you hear?" for bedtime. Scott and I each chortle when the other gets chosen to read them. Flamingos go "flute?" At least at bedtime, we don't give in to "Again?!" to his please. Of course, this means he'll run over and grab "Mr. Brown can moo, can you?" and have us read that. He loves knocking on wood to imitate the knocking. And he's stated to go "SSSS" like the boa constrictor in Polar Bear. Having him pick out books has gotten him to take a bit more of an interest in reading before bed - we were despairing of him even noticing us again. His world is trains, trains, trains.
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