Dear Lyra,
Happy 14 month birthday!
This has felt like the biggest month yet. Not only did you take your first steps and pee for the first time in your potty, but you also started sleeping through the night. It feels like our whole life has changed!
It all started a few weeks ago when your sleep took a turn for the worst. Not only were we spending an hour or more nursing or rocking you to sleep at bedtime, we were also getting up many times during the night and spending hours soothing you back to sleep. On the third night of about three hours total sleep, we hit a breaking point. Despite how difficult sleep training had been before we felt like it was our only option. We felt desperate.
We took a slightly different approach this time (following a method described in Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems by Dr Ferber). It felt a little more strict but also a little more consistent. We started on a Thursday night and Molly was onboard for Friday naps. And it worked! The first bedtime was the worst — 40 minutes of crying followed by 90 (!!) minutes of sitting with your head bobbing as you fought to stay awake. You woke up once a few hours later but managed to get back to sleep after only one check-in and then you slept through until morning. Over the next few days your fussing dropped to almost nothing and you kept sleeping through from bedtime until 7am. Unlike our experience before, this was clearly working. You weren’t fighting it. You seemed relieved to be able to fall asleep on your own. Your dad and I spent the last few weeks wondering if it was really going to keep working, not wanting to jinx it. Can we high-five now?
I can’t exaggerate the profound affect that your new sleep skills have had on our life. It’s huge. I feel like a new person. Now that I am regularly getting full nights of sleep I feel like my brain is working differently. I can think beyond the current crisis. I can see more of the big picture. I have the mental and physical energy to not only take care of you, but also myself and my marriage. I was never really worried about my relationship with your dad, but it was certainly very hard and at times very sad. I often took my bad moods out on him. It takes a lot of energy to be gentle and tender and empathetic; and energy was very scarce. It was very hard for me to see outside my immediate experience. It was very hard.
But thankfully things improved dramatically when we all started getting more sleep. Not only that, your dad and I also get a few hours together every night! We watch movies! We drink wine! We sometimes talk about things that aren’t directly related to you!
Within about a week of the Great Sleep Revelation you took your first few steps. And everyday after, you took a few more and now you are walking! You stumble and teeter like a drunk but you are persistent and you keep getting back up. You even accept a hand to help you balance! We started visiting at least one — and often two or more — playgrounds every weekend. You love slides and climbing and watching older children. So far you’ve had two face-plant falls which resulted in cut swollen lips. Both times you recovered pretty quickly but I spent hours feeling awful. I’m so worried you are going to break your teeth! I hope that soon you learn to protect your face by throwing out your hands. It’s hard for me to give you space to explore independently when I’m afraid you are going to fall and get hurt. I think this must be level one of an Important Parental Lesson. I hope I pass! I wonder what level two will be?
Love,
Mama
