On February 6, my daughter will turn three. There will be cupcakes. And presents. And a lot of wondering where all the time has gone.
I'm the first to admit that it's been a blur, but that has nothing to do with time flying cruelly by and her growing up so fast. It's blurry because my daughter's third birthday also represents my third consecutive year without adequate sleep. She's not a sleeper by nature and when she's awake we're up with her.
It's hard to put a number on it, but these days I probably average five to six hours a night at the most. Over three years, almost 1,100 days, I'd estimate that I've lost 2,000 to 3,000 hours of sleep. (I have lots of time to think about that kind of thing when I'm awake.)
The thing is, we really can't blame Elly for any of it because my wife and I failed to follow the very good advice that was given to us by countless parents. I'm a big enough man to admit when I'm wrong.
Take swaddling. Every sleep expert out there recommends you swaddle the hell out of your baby at night time, then transition to a sleep sack, but Elly didn't like it that first night so we didn't do it - it seemed mean to pin her arms and feet, and it made us feel claustrophobic to watch her. So all night long she'd wave her little arms around and kick her little feet, and within a few months she was rolling around in her crib - her developing brain active the whole time. She never learned to lie still, relax and surrender to sleep.
Then there's the whole sleep-training thing we completely botched. At around five or six months some experts (though not all of them) recommend letting your children cry it out so they learn to soothe themselves to fall asleep. The sound of Elly crying always broke our hearts, so we never really seriously tried to sleep train until she was 10 months. By then it was too late. She was walking by then and more active than ever. She was also a creature of habit, and could only fall sleep in our arms, in our laps or in a moving car or stroller - and only then after a bottle of milk.
At 13 months, exhausted beyond belief, we hired a sleep trainer. For $500, she talked us through the process and established a routine for us to follow each and every day. We grit our teeth and let Elly cry herself to sleep, checking in every so often so she would know we were still there (and to sniff her diaper).
It was hard but it was a success. For about 10 days we slept almost like we used to, long and uninterrupted, and Elly did the same. We were all a lot happier and the future seemed bright.
Then, like idiots, we broke our routine. We went to the city to visit family and put Elly in a pack-and-play. Instead of sleeping she spent her time figuring out how to crawl out. Took her about 15 minutes.
We were curious what would happen the next night at home, and sure enough she could now get out of her crib. Only fourteen months old, she could hook her little foot on the edge of the crib and haul herself over the side.
Not knowing that there were nets we could buy to keep her in - and concerned about choking and falling hazards- we bought her a twin bed with a roll bar on the side. That was pretty much game over, because now Elly was fully mobile at night. Our only hope for the past 20 months was to hope she'd somehow outgrow her sleep issues. She hasn't.
We made a few half-assed attempts to sleep train since then, but always gave up because we were too tired to continue. On the last attempt, after three weeks of averaging about three hours of sleep per night, I gave up forever. My sanity was literally in question. The compromise was for my wife and I to take turns sleeping with Elly in her bed.
And that's where things currently stand, while Elly gets bigger and her little bed gets smaller. She's also an extremely active sleeper and at any point you can get woken up by a foot, fist or head butt.
Now our only hope is to somehow bribe her to sleep, a technique that's worked for potty training and brushing her teeth. If she can sleep through the night in her own bed, for three months in a row, she gets a puppy. It's the thing she wants most in the world right now, but apparently not enough to sleep for it.
Sleep is really the only thing about Elly that I would change. She's funny, smart and athletic, she's great to hang out with, she plays well with others, she listens to teachers (more than she listens to her parents), she's creative, she's independent - a wonderful, beautiful child that I love coming home to after a long day at work. I've enjoyed watching her grow up and I'm excited by all the things in her future.
Unfortunately, after three long years, the sleep issue tends to overshadow everything else. Maybe this year...
