Long Term Sleep Issues
Many of our kids have long term sleep issues. GlitterGirl adjusted splendidly to life with her new family in all ways except bedtime. When it was time for bed she would completely lose it. Every night. For one and a half to three hours. For years and years and years.
For the first few weeks (maybe months, it was a while), only RK could get her to sleep at night. The trick was that you couldn’t get upset, you had to stay calm, while she thrashed and kicked and hit and screamed all of the pain and anger and fear that was in her little soul. Every night. If the person holding her got emotional then she’d just keep ramping it up. RK didn’t tell me that, he gave me no clues as to what he was doing, I had to figure it out. Maybe he didn’t realize what he was doing — the ability to care without becoming emotional about it, maybe it’s just who he is? At any rate, I’ve heard more than once about the dad being better at the night time thing than the mom, and I’ve often wondered if that’s not the reason for them, as well. I started out by crying with her (how could you not cry when you could hear the grief in her voice as she cried and screamed her little heart out?), and then I tried to disassociate and just hold her without being involved (trying to mimic RK, since he didn’t get emotional and that seemed to work for him). But, no, what she needed was for someone to feel what she was doing, someone to talk to her, be with her without joining in and taking part in her drama. What ended up working for me was to say something along the lines of “sometimes it’s hard to be the baby”, and to commiserate with her, to let her hear the sympathy in my voice, but not to get emotional about it. Kind of a cross between being engaged and being detached. Hard to explain, much much harder to do.
She was napping three times a day at the orphanage and when she first came home. More often that not she was fine to go down for a nap. There were a lot of times that she would lose it for her naps, too, though. We experimented around with less nap time, more nap time, different nap times… what ended up being best was for her to get as much sleep in the way of naps as possible during the day. If the naps were cut short then her grief at night was worse. Within six or eight weeks of coming home she’d changed to two slightly longer naps – same amount of time sleeping, but done in two naps instead of three. And then a couple of months later it was one long nap, again, same amount of time sleeping, but done all at once. When she moved to one nap a day we discovered that it should be earlier rather than later in the day. But with two or three shorter naps a day, the timing wasn’t as important.
I have all kinds of theories about why she had problems at night. I think a lot of it was that during the day when she was active she could focus on the fun she was having, but at night, all of the sadness and grief came out. I think some of it was about control, too. You have to let go and lose control over yourself to some extent in order to go to sleep, and I think she decided at some point that she wasn’t willing to do that at night. And she is very hard headed. Very. Hard. Headed.
And finally, from some of the reading that I’ve done, I realize that the experts say that some kids worry that they’ll lose their new family if they go to sleep. Maybe not in those exact words and thoughts, because often it is infants with these sleep issues, as GG was when we brought her home. (GG was as young as you ever see children from China come home.) With infants, it’s more of an imprint, a reaction, than a thought. At any rate, I can’t discount the theory. GG lost her first family within a few days of birth, and then she lost her caretaker a few months later. She is one of the lucky ones — she was in an orphanage with a primary caretaker who appears to have had strong feelings for the babies in her charge. This incredible woman loved the ten babies in her care. With so many babies she was responsible for, she couldn’t give them any developmental skills, all she could do was keep them alive, but you could tell that she genuinely cared for the babies. The smiles the babies gave her, and that she gave them, told a story of love. So, GG had two losses in a relatively short amount of time, and the experts tell us that this can also be part of the problem with terror around going to sleep at night. Also, GG was “found” early in the morning, so her first loss did happen at night, possibly while she was sleeping. It’s possible she went to sleep with her original family and woke up with strangers. Who knows what that imprints into the brain?
In the end, we just planned for the tears and screaming and thrashing time at night. We had a specific bedtime routine, and that was part of the bedtime routine. It was part of our day, nothing to be done about it but do the best we could to give her a sense of security and to show her we loved her. RK and I swapped out with it, once I got to a point where I could actually get her to sleep. We found a way to hold her that limited her movements without making her feel as if she was being restrained, and we’d turn the bedroom light off but leave the bathroom light on, and I played the music, classical at first, then when it came out we got the Baby Bach CD
My advice is to keep a log, and to ask the daytime caregiver to keep a log of naptimes as well, so you can transfer it to your log. Mine was a spreadsheet, with nap start times and wake times, and then night time start to put her to sleep, actually go to sleep, reawake time, go back to sleep time, reawaken time, go back to sleep time, reawaken time, go back to sleep time, and wake time. And a big space for comments. Oh, and if you’re going to play around with bottle times and different foods then make columns for that in the spreadsheet as well. If you are going to try something new then try to do it at least four days in a row before ruling it in or out. (Sometimes a colossal failure only got two nights, but most things got four to seven nights before we decided if it was better or worse).
You can also try different sleeping arrangements; letting the child sleep with you, or putting the child in a crib right beside your bed. GG seemed to get better rest in the crib, but she had to go to sleep in our arms. With that kind of grief in her tears, she needed to be held. In the beginning, when we first got home, she slept in our bed with us a few nights, but (again) with the trial and error, it worked best to transfer her to the crib once she was good and asleep. But we had to keep touching her, if we broke contact, even for a second, she’d wake up. So I slept with my arm stuck through the bars of the crib.
TwinkleToes had some sleep issues as well, but compared to GG’s sleep issues, they were a piece of cake. If we didn’t have GG’s sleep issues as a barometer then I’d have probably thought TT’s sleep issues were a huge deal, but as it was, they were just something to deal with. Again, we kept track of nap times and sleep times and how many times she woke up during the night, and what worked and what didn’t. Most nights TT slept in the crib beside the bed, but some nights she slept in our bed with us. Some nights she spent the first half of the night in her crib and the latter half of the night in our bed.
It’s been three and a half years since I wrote The not-so-rosy part, but it’s still very relevant. I’ve had people tell me that they would go back and read it when they were having trouble dealing with their child’s grief, to help them remember what their child had to grieve about.
If you do any reading at all on attachment issues then you’re going to know that the Ferber stuff and the cry-it-out stuff is the last thing you should even consider doing with a newly adopted baby or child. Will it work? Sure, in the short term, if your goal is just to get the child to sleep without any drama then it will probably appear to work from your perspective. It will teach the child that it’s senseless to cry, that the people taking care of him or her won’t be there to hold him or her, so there is no use in crying. Depending on the orphanage your child lived, it may very well re-enforce knowledge learned in the orphanage: no one cares if you cry, so why bother. Which means that in the short term it may seem to work, but in the long term, the Ferber stuff will make your parenting more difficult, not less difficult, because parenting a teen with major attachment issues will be pure hell. If you follow the advice in the attachment books, then you’ll do everything you can to foster a healthy attachment with your child. Even if it means holding them while they cry, night after night after night.
Both girls are better off because they were allowed to be close to us at night for a few years upon coming home. American society is the only society that I’m aware of that thinks babies should be off alone in their own room. I’m not sure why that is, but it really does not make sense. There can be some safety issues with bringing an infant into your bed – you should put rails up so the child won’t fall off the bed, and if you are a heavy sleeper who moves around a lot then that could be a problem. I found that I slept so lightly when GG was in bed with us though, that there was no danger of me rolling over on her. I actually slept deeper when she was in the crib, even though I had to sleep with my arm in the crib, meaning I had to be aware enough to switch arms if I rolled over in my sleep. So, you know that I was aware of where she was as I moved around when she was actually in the bed. But there is no danger involved in having the crib in your room, against the side of your bed, so the child knows you are right there, and they aren’t off alone all by themselves.
Twinkle Toes now goes to bed in her own bedroom, in her own big girl bed, every night. About once a month she ends up in either our bed, or her sister’s bed, partway through the night. She’s allowed to go to her sister’s bed if it’s a Friday or Saturday night, but knows if it’s a school night she must come to our bed if she wakes up and doesn’t want to be alone.
GlitterGirl also sleeps in her own bed, in her own bedroom, with no problems. She would prefer to sleep with us, but she’s perfectly okay in her own bed. GG has scary fevers when she’s sick, so we do let her sleep with us when she’s sick, but that’s mainly so I’ll know if her fever starts to spike at night.
If you missed it, here is the story of TwinkleToes transitioning to her bedroom out of our bedroom.
May 20th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
That’s a pretty bold statement about sleep training–long term attachment issues, teenagers with attachment issues, etc. I would love to see what research you are referring too. And no one recommends letting your child “cry it out.”
We did do sleep training with our daughter. It was difficult at times, but we are glad we did it. Professional and educational evaluations indicate she is doing well–more than well actually.
One thing I have learned is to have respect for whatever method families employ with regards to sleep. Things generally work out in the end. But for those of us who don’t have the luxury of holding our children until they fall asleep each and every night, there are other options.
I am glad you put up these posts on sleep issues. I think they are important. However, I think there are far more ways of approaching this than your post would indicate.
May 20th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
In our FCC group, and in our first travel group, the families who thought the attachment stuff wasn’t important, and who put their child into a room by themselves at night, all now have children with major issues. Major. Issues.
Those who kept their children in their room with them, and who were told we were going overboard with the attachment stuff, do not have children who are completely out of control.
With several of the local kids, I could see that they weren’t attaching, but all their parents saw was kids who were “good” because they didn’t cling, weren’t needy, didn’t cry, etc. Now they have kids who aren’t attached, but that no longer means a “good” kid. It means kids who are out of control. One of them has been kicked out of more schools that I can count, even the public school they are zoned for. The only place left for the kid is the school for “problem children”. Several of the others have been kicked out of their private schools and are now in public schools. One of them is 11 and has already been to drug rehab.
Several are still in their schools, but they are in special classes, or are in intensive therapy to try to fix now what should have been done when they first came home. Attachment is soooo important. Many parents don’t get that until the child is older though, and that’s a real shame.
May 20th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
If we are going by travel groups, the only child in our group that didn’t do some form of sleep training is also the only child in our group who is currently in therapy. At age 6. I doubt that her problems were due to a lack of sleep training. Her parents are just coddle and baby her way too much–and now no one in her school will play with her.
However, I don’t really think FCC groups or travel groups are particularly good samples to base recommendations. All I can say is that sleep training worked well for us, and our DD is doing very well. If she ends up in rehab as a teen or a young adult, I would tend to attribute it to something other than sleep.
What I do notice on the RQ forum from time to time is that some parents who have either co-sleep or held their children til they fell asleep don’t know how to get out of that habit. So they are co-sleeping with their child until the kid in kindergarten and the parent wants to start sleeping solo. They lack an easy, painless way of doing this.
May 20th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
I’ve got a sample size of about 35 kids who are older than nine years old and who I’ve seen frequently over the years (we have an active playgroup schedule). And of the 11 who have had serious issues at school, all 11 of them were put into a room by themselves within a month or so of coming home. Another 7 of them haven’t had major problems at school, but there are problems and they are getting extra counseling or therapy now, and their parents are trying to work on attachment and/or sensory issues now, but they didn’t start until the kids were in first or second grade or third grade – and those seven were also put into a room by themselves shortly after arriving home. I am especially close to three of the kids, and it’s broken my heart to watch them grow up into the kids they have become. The only way to explain their relationships with their parents and grandparents and friends is to say they are broken. And with one of the girls, the parents divorced last year and now the child is even worse – I ache for her.
But it’s not just the sleeping thing, it’s the whole view of attachment, I think. The parents didn’t understand attachment, didn’t read up on it, didn’t think it was important. Where the child slept is just one piece of what went wrong. The parents insisted to the rest of us how “good” their kids were, and the reasons they listed were all huge red flags for attachment, but the parents weren’t willing to see that.
Yes, their children are self dependent… but is that really a good thing? Independence should come in stages, shouldn’t it? GG is more clingy than most kids her age, and that is due in large part to her anxious attachment… but at least she is attached. And she does well in school and in all of her extracurricular activities and she has a ton of friends and two very close friends. TT is about as independent as a child can get, but she still looks to make sure I’m close by while she’s being independent.
And did you read the story of us getting TT into her own bedroom? Did that really sound like a huge problem?
I will agree that there are some who over-coddle their older kids, and I will agree that over-coddling has a tendency to create kids with, ummm, entitlement issues. Is that a nice way to say it? But none of those kids have been kicked out of school, none of them are in drug rehab. One of them is making bad grades and the parents blame the teacher instead of making their child responsible, and that annoys me to no end… but that’s not an attachment thing.
May 20th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
For DD1, we also had hour or more going to sleep at night, with lots of crying and rocking – until we discovered by accident that if DH took over bed time AND I took a bath at that same time (so I was “unavailable”) she went right to sleep – no crying or rocking needed. She had no issue with going down for naps BUT she also took very short naps for the first year – which I attribute now to similar to what RQ wrote (when waking up a little she needed to check everything out and then ended up wide awake). Really it was when I finally went to co-sleeping with her every night (when I went to bed not when she went to bed) that DD1′s sleep issues resolved- and she had been in a crib in our room before that so it’s something about the touch that does it for her not the proximity.
Now DD2 (we’re only at month 4) on the other hand is a perfect example of why I believe some adoptive parents think “cry it out” works – because it does for her. If I stay with her she just wants to play. If I leave, well, she has 2 cries: a “frustrated” cry and a “I’m sad or hurt” cry. When going to bed she’ll either cry her “frustrated” cry for a little bit or play quietly. The difference between the two cries is very obvious, so if I hear a hurt/sadness cry (rarely) I go in immediately and stay with her until she is done with that otherwise I just “check in” with her every few minutes (more when crying, less when playing happily).
Since co-sleeping made such a huge difference with DD1, I am co-sleeping with both children as well though, I just take the side off the crib (which is pushed up to the bed) when I go to bed and sleep between the two of them. So I believe that makes a difference in DD2′s comfort level and I credit co-sleeping with making this an easy transition for DD1 – although it does drive me crazy when they’re both snuggled up at the same time :D
May 20th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Hello,
We have been home for over 3 years. First I slept in a bed with the crib next to me and I held her hand as she fell asleep. She was so tiny and I am a heavy sleeper that I was afraid I would roll over on her if she was in bed with me. We rearranged the bed room after about 1 1/2 years of her being with us and put the crib at the foot of the bed. Those first two weeks were fine and then we had a night terror. This only had to happen two times for us to know that we HAD to change our strategy. If you don’t know what a night terror is let me tell you. Our daughter started crying and screaming about 2 am and when I went to comfort her she was still asleep although she appeared to be awake. She was hitting, kicking, and scratching at me TERRIFIED. She did not have a clue I was there for about 10 minutes. So that was the last time she slept in the crib. Since then I have slept in her queen size bed with her. My husband is in the other room. She is now 4 years old. She is well adjusted BUT I still can’t sleep in my bed. This is our ONLY orphanage / adoption baggage that I know of. If you are reading this and have not been to China yet you may be thinking I would NEVER do that. I know I would have. BUT once you see how terrified they are., unless you are really heartless, you will end up doing the same thing. Now if you have an older sister that can co-sleep with her, you would be in great shape I think. Big sister would be perfect to snuggle up with.
Rose
May 20th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
I teach attachment parenting and am an adoptive mother. I also mentor for several large adoption agencies in attachment. There is not a Dr. in the world that deals with IA (any country) and I am assuming that you of course have a peds Dr. that is well versed in IA and attachment, that will tell you its ok to use the Ferber method or let them cry it out. Hopefully you are practicing attachment parenting or at least become familar with it because in all likelihood if you don’t do it now (or up front) you will do it later and it will be much harder on everyone. The last thing you should be encouraging is independence in a post institutionlized child. These kids are clueless about what a family is, what their role is, what a mother is for and what a father is for as well as siblings. Understand that attachment parenting can never hurt a child that has spent time in a baby home or orphanage. If you are going to help your child grieve then you must have a better understanding of grief and loss. You must understand and deal with the ambiguous loss right from the start and that will include creating a trust and dependency between you and your child that will ensure a more secure attachment. A proper, attached bond cannot and will not be formed if the child cannot depend on you to answer any and all cries/demands from that child right from the beginning. They will continue to depend only on themselves and will put on a surface/insecure attachment, a walking time bomb. Independence comes in stages as RQ stated but attachment first, a secure attachment, its ongoing and on their terms, like it or not.
May 20th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Actually I do go to a ped who is a pretty well known IA expert, and he was quite fine with our sleep training methods (which weren’t Ferber.) He would never advise us to let her “cry it out,” but that wasn’t what we did. And that isn’t what sleep training is about.
As for view of attachment, I am not sure who has the appropriate understanding of attachment. But I can say that I am positive I can find just as many families who sleep train and whose children are fine as you could from your various groups. I am not sure either proves much because there is a lot to be wanting in the selection of both groups.
However, I do know that there are lots of reasons why you are seeing what you are seeing in your FCC and travel groups. The child’s emotional state prior to adoption, genetic make-up, and parenting techniques. But to put this all on sleep is a bit much. And putting this all on the parents is a bit much. Sometimes whether bio or adopted–kids are the way they are–despite the best intentions of the adults in their lives.
May 20th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
We’ve done it all, sleeping in crib, cosleeping, fall asleep and move the child. You do whatever works for you and your child. Our son adopted at age 2 was content with sleeping in his crib from day 2 in China. He did sleep on me the first night in China. But we do have another child, a girl and for the first 3 months home with him, she slept in a twin bed & he slept in the crib beside each other. When we moved her back to her room we moved his crib to another wall in his room to where if the door was left open he could she me sleeping in my bed. Fortunately our rooms are across the hall from each other.
Now with dd (adopted at 15 months) she slept in her crib from day 3 in China but she wouldn’t cry. This alarmed me as well. She didn’t think I would come if she cried. The month of her second birthday we took a trip to NYC and she coslept with dh & I because the metal crib made too much noise for me to sleep. After that, she never wanted to go back to her crib or her room. She would take naps in her crib/toddler bed but at night she wanted us & actually learned during this time to cry for reassurance. It was almost music to my ears. I knew she had finally learned that if I cry, someone will come. We did do holding time, and rocking at bedtime and all those things from day one but sometimes time is the best thing for healing. Keep trying to bond & give them time to relearn to trust.
May 20th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
I have to say, I think (based on what I’ve read on many sites) that most families that opted for co-sleeping or in the same room feel that that IS THE ONLY WAY. Where many families who opted for having the kids sleep in their own room are not black and white about the issues and feel if it works for you fine, but for themselves they have chosen this approach.
I truly think how the child reacts and attaches is not as simple as saying you must co-sleep. We have adopted twins and their is definitely a difference in how our kids have attached (and we are constantly working on it- not ignoring it) and there is a difference in how they sleep.
I can admit that we do not co-sleep. And I can admit that we do still have sleep issues. We did try co-sleeping and not for just a short period. It just was not working for our family (or the boys.)We transitioned them back to their
room and -sleep issues stayed about the same and gradually got better and better as they attached more and more. Except when we made the mistake of one night about 7 months home of going out for a bit and leaving grandparents at home. We expected to be home long before the boys “first wakeup” (they were incredibly predictable and we could set the clock by the wakeup time EXCEPT for the night this occurrd) But instead of sleeping till 11:30pm they woke up at 10:30pm. We were actually coming in the garage and could hear the heart breaking cries. Our parents were searching for the ph # we had left w/ them just in case. They had not expected this reaction. We had only been about 2 minutes away from home and our parents at first thought that they could comfort the boys and get them back to sleep. We came in and it took a while to get them resettled. And then our sleep issues bactracked to where we had been MONTHS before. We went back to wakeups every hour. Granted our issues are multiplied as the boys were waking each other up. And then the 2yr molars came in. And again sleep got worse. And for some reason at some point the boys decided that Daddy wasn’t going to work for them anymore and Daddy was unable to get them back to sleep on his nights. And was unable to get them down to sleep (which had been primarily his duty since the early days).
It took a few good months to get that back on track. And now, the teeth are almost all in, and the sleep is getting better again.
How long will it be till we have a back slide again?
I can say also that sleep issues like this I was totally unprepared for. I had read many books but they seemed to focus on just the intial transition period. I thought, “how hard can that be?” Well 5 months into it and no end to sleep problems in sight I was a zombie. I would fall asleep sometimes the second my DH walked in the house.
I want to reiterate that despite my long tale of sleep issues ONE of my boys has always slept way better than the other. And he is the more attached. The other quite often even wakes in the middle of naps to be sure I’m still there.
Oh…and I answer EVERY CRY during the night. I do not believe in ferberizing for these kids. But I do believe sometimes that using progressive crying (while there and verballing comforting the child) is sometimes a choice that works to get the kids back to sleep. Now some of you will think that THIS is why my kids have sleep issues. And I can assure you. the sleep issues went on for a long time before I tried this to get them back to sleep. And the sleep issues became better after I began trying this.
- aah the one who wakes during nap is stirring my time is short so I’ll end now (and hope this makes sense as I don’t have time to edit!)
May 20th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
I don’t think RQ is saying it’s the only reason the kids have problems. If the child is allowed to “parent” themself you ae going to see issues. We planned on co-sleeping for a couple months and then transitioning DD to her crib. As in a previous post, if you haven’t experienced/heard the screams of absolute horror from a terrified toddler you can’t judge. My precious angel was beyond terrified to be alone in her crib. I’m talking gut wrenching terror, screams I’ve never heard in my life. My child will have one of us with her at night for as long as she needs us. We tried all different strategies and this is the only one that allows us all to sleep through the night. I stay with DD in her big girl bed until she falls asleep. If she wakes up crying I go back in to sleep with her. No other way works. She’s 2 1/2 and was home with us a year in March. I’m still amazed at how much trauma my baby went through and imprinted in her brain. We were not prepared even though I read “all the books”.
May 20th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
I don’t think co-sleeping (them sleeping in your bed) is always the best thing. For some kids it is, for others it isn’t. My kids spent most of their sleeping time in the crib. But, the crib was pushed up against the side of my bed, and my arm was in the crib. Eventually they slept without my arm in the crib, then the crib got moved to the bottom of the bed, then against the wall and away from the bed, and then they eventually went to their own rooms. But they had to attach before we could work on separation. And you don’t get that attachment if you take a child who has never been alone in a room by themselves and expect them to suddenly be okay with that at night.
As someone else said, you have to teach them what being in a family means, you have to teach them what a mommy and daddy are, you have to undo what they learned, how their brains were programmed by living in an orphanage. You don’t do that by sending them to another room all by themselves at night. Sure, once they’ve formed a healthy attachment you can do that… but they have to attach first.
I never said attachment is all about where they sleep. There are a whole lot of things that form attachment. But, healthy attachment is one of those things that requires trust, and if you break trust one time, then it can destroy everything else you’ve done to try to get that trust. You can do everything else right, but if they learn that no one is there with them at night when they just might be at their most vulnerable… trust can be such a fragile thing, especially for kids who’ve already experienced the losses that our children have.
May 20th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
I just re-read my post and should say that we read all the books but still “didn’t get” that the sleep issues/fear of sleep were directly related to her fear of abandonment. It wasn’t until we connected the dots (duh stupid parents) that we were able to do a better job attachment parenting. We still see night terrors from time to time but only if she’s sick or other changes have happened.
May 20th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Bravo! for addressing an issue that so many of us struggle with, for so many varying reasons!
We have long been proponents of the “gentling to sleep” methods of “sleep training.” Taking the long view, there is such a short period of time in which our little ones (bio or adopted) are little ENOUGH to snuggle, hold closely, and TANGIBLY demonstrate loving attachment. The security that we help create in our kids when we BY EXAMPLE teach them that sleep is restful, pleasant and good for them has reaped amazing dividends in my older kids.
But I really don’t like the term “sleep training” – as it still smacks to me of something that I’m imposing upon my child. Rather, we prefer to be students of our child’s individual temperaments and do the guiding and gentling from there. With my bio kids, sometimes it looked like nursing them to sleep, sometimes it looked like rocking them and holding them close till they were “twilighting” and sometimes it looked like laying with them. All of it was pointed toward developing a pleasant and bonding type of night time routine. And today, those kids all go to bed easily, fall asleep easily, and rarely suffer from night time issues of any sort.
With our adopted daughter, we had to strip away all the independence that she’d learned in her group and foster homes. We had to almost force a snuggling type of routine onto her, all for the purpose of teaching that parent-nurture attachment that you mentioned in your comments. It was a long journey, and undoubtedly the hardest part of the attachment that we experienced. While sleep issues are not ALL of attachment, they are certainly central to a LOT of attachment because of the very nature of the developmental understandings that children progress through as they grow. Add the learning of how to be someone’s treasured child and part of a family into that and look at it from the child’s perspective.
And while we’re naming sleeping techniques that are to be carefully considered and WARY of, let’s not forget Baby Wise. Ugh. So. Not. Wise. And certainly NOT compassionate.
May 20th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
I was a sleep in your bed mom. Then I became a mom. Bio or adopted, I am just not sure how realistic it is to expect a child to trust, in the dark, unable to communicate in a cage (crib) that you are going to be there for them, if they are crying and you don’t come. The trust comes by going to them.
I am mom to my now 4 yr old from China. I too have always felt that since she was found in the wee hours, that was her crisis time. Folks tell me Oh she can’t remember. Do I think she has an actual memory? No. But I thinks she felt fear for the first time at 2 or so days old and remembers that .
One of us laid down with her, until she said the words. “No, momma, I sleep by myself” The snuggles, the eye contact, helping her learn to relax and calm herself, not one second I would trade.
She would get up multiple times a night. As soon as she would see us she would go back down, relatively quickly and painlessly, me not so much so I suffered serious sleep deprivation for almost 18 months, but I still feel it was worth it to provide that trust to her. When she rejected the crib she would wake once a night and toddle in to us, at that point sleep for us all, including me was important to in she would come with us for the rest of the night.
And you could see the trust happen. My husband would say at the beginning she sleeps so close to you it is hard to know where she ends and you begin. As her trust grew she was content to just roll over when she was ready to sleep.
We did a simliar thing to TT when it was time for her big girl bed. But I knew I had to help her realize she could trust we would come. We did monitor drills, so she knew we could hear her if she needed us and I promised I would always come. At first she would call out once a night. A cover or her bear was needed or a hug. And I would ask in the morning, what was up. Her reply, I just needed you.
As she got more secure, it was once a week then a month.
Now hardly ever but I always come when she calls.
She is one secure child. She sleeps through thunderstorms and lightening. She doesn’t have nightmares or night terrors. Am I just lucky, maybe, but I think the work I did on night trust certainly helped tip the scales.
When she does get up it is around the time I would imagine she was left based on when she was found……… Do I think that left its mark, yes and if it is within my power, I will always go to her.
And as far as laying down with her, now its storytime and snuggles, somedays I sleep by myself momma, somedays she wants to stay with me or me with her. I will do that as long as she will let me.
May 20th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
I SO needed this post this week. We are dealing with sleep problems and trying to decide how to move forward. We’ve had sleep problems since day 1 in China (it’s been 2yrs). We’ve tried just about anything and everything. For our DD, it is all about the touching, holding, snuggling, and comfort of knowing we are there. She’s very soft-hearted and everyone who meets her describes her as having a “sweet spirit”. I think that contributes to her need to co-sleep. Unfortunately, we didn’t start co-sleeping until we’d been home for a year (I really didn’t want to go there…but this is what SHE needed). But then I needed sleep and when she was sleeping in her crib, I spent more time in the rocking chair in her room than I did in bed sleeping. That’s when we threw in the towel and started co-sleeping. Things got incredibly better.
Like GG, DD will literally stay up all night long and push past exhaustion like no child I have ever known. She doesn’t “eventually fall asleep”…she keeps moving her body, she WON’T fall asleep (and even has trouble while rocking). It’s frustrating and heart-breaking at the same time. She’s not ready to “sleep train” yet. Will she one day? Yes. But it’s not today at 3 yrs old.
And now we’re back with more problems. Getting to sleep has been very bad. Going to bed so late (despite attempting to get her to sleep earlier) alone is not a problem, IF she’d still get sleep. But, my DD gets up at 5am no matter what time she goes to bed. And no amount of anything will get her to go back to sleep. We’ve tried it all. Believe me. And that’s an improvement…it used to be 4am. Then it was 6am for quite a while and I (mistakenly) thought we were done with 5am mornings. Nope. Back to 5am again.
Oh and let’s not forget the multiple times during the night that she screams, cries, thrashes, kicks and hits in her sleep. I wouldn’t necessarily say they are night terrors, but she’s clearly asleep…one minute you think she’s awake from a bad dream, the next minute she’s snoring. Typically it starts at 2am. every. night. And it scares the living daylights out of me just about every night. These just started about 3 months ago. I’m hoping whatever it is that she’s “working through” she works through soon…and I’d love to know to help her work through it. But in the mean time, I’m right there in her bed so she knows I’m there.
May 21st, 2010 at 1:11 am
I think we’ve had an easier time than most people with sleep. Our daughter did need to be rocked to sleep when she was a baby, but once asleep, if there was not too much noise, she slept through the night. She REFUSED to sleep in our room. We tried. She cried. (From the very first day we brought her home!) She was only happy in her own crib in her own room. Odd–especially because now, at 5 1/2, she’d do anything to be in our room! LOL. She is allowed to come in before we get up in the morning, and whenever there are scary noises like thunderstorms. When we travel, we’re often all squished in one bed.
With our son, our daughter REALLY wanted to sleep with him, so we went that route for a few months, and things went well. He also sleeps through the night very well, and never cries when we put him down. I did get up and rock him last night but I think he was crying because his daddy had been out of town, and he really didn’t know what to make of that.
We prepared for major sleep problems, but never really had any, surprisingly enough. We did rock our daughter for several months, but at 18 months she would NOT let us rock her anymore and pointed to her crib. We were amazed how easily we got out of THAT routine!
May 21st, 2010 at 9:41 am
If we lived in a perfect world we could all handle the sleep issues perfectly. Unfortunatly life isn’t perfect and we can’t control everything. I am a single mom, a nurse practitioner, who works nights. My job was what enabled me to pay for two adoptions and support my two daughters.This means I am not home 2-3 night a weeks. I am home everyday when they get off the bus and able to be at every school activity. While my babysitter is wonderful, she is not mommy. I was home from work for 2 months after I got home from china with DD#1, at 1 year of age. My daughter was sleeping thru the night in china and waking every 1-2 hours when we got home. For the first month I got up and rocked her back to sleep. She needed to learn to put herself back to sleep because I was going back to work. I did a modified ferber- would go to her when she cried, pat her, stroke her back, but not rock her back into sleep. As hard as it was for me to watch her cry I knew it would be harder to have her awake crying for me at night when I wasn’t there. It took her a week to learn to put herself back to sleep. If she woke when the sitter was there she would look. see it wasn’t mommy and go back to bed. She is now 8 and I have yet to have any attachment issues ( i guess the key word is ‘yet’). DD#2 was 2 yrs old at adoption. She slept directly on top of me for the first week in china, then sleep in the the bed with DD#2. I kept the two of them in bed together when we got home and again, i went back to work after 2 months.
My point is that we all do what works for our family. It may not be the ‘best choice’ sometimes it is our only choice.
May 21st, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Well, obviously, sleep issues are complicated.
I did want to add that we are co-sleepers.
One of our daughters is struggling with sensory issues right now and aspects of ADD. Her need to co-sleep improved dramatically after we began the sensory integration therapy. On nights when I brush her thoroughly, she is almost always capable of spending the entire night sleeping by herself. (I also think that she gets better quality sleep on those nights.)
So if your child needs you to co-sleep every single night, even when they are school age and older, do not neglect to have a sensory integration test done, even if you have had one done in the past. We had our DD tested as an infant, and she passed with flying colors. Turns out the OT missed huge sensory issues that I diagnosed later. Fortunately, after much frustration, we are now working with a great therapist, but so much time has been wasted.
Sleep is connected with so many different issues, including PTSD (which I think we are seeing with our other DD), that it can be hard to figure out exactly how we can help our children get the high quality sleep they need to thrive. But we have to keep trying. It is so important to the whole family.
May 24th, 2010 at 12:12 am
Well, I think its really true that what works for one may not work for another. We also have an expression in our house, if you would like to criticize our parenting, do drop in for a day of babysitting and see if your perspective changes! Everyone knows what works best for them and I certainly respect everyone’s experiences.
We adopted dd at 11 mths. She slept in our room on the first night in a playpen by our bed, but no one slept. She thought it was funny to look at us, and I couldn’t sleep knowing she was in the room. Next day, we put her in her crib for a trial nap and she was out like a light. From that day forward, every night in her own room without issue.
We adopted ds at 19 months. On his first night home we put him in the crib to see what would happen and he went right to sleep. He’s been doing this ever since. (whew!)
As babies, both of our kids tend to give a couple of angry yelps when put to bed (more of an offended that they can’t keep playing yelp rather than a truly distressed yelp) but by the time your foot hits the bottom stair, they’re quiet and off to sleepytown. I wouldn’t define that as ferberizing as it is only a matter of minutes.
What has helped alot is that we have a very strict bedtime routine. We especially stick with this with our ds since he was adopted so recently. We even read him the same 2 books every night, with same actions, in the same order. If we don’t he gets upset, so you can tell he likes his routine. Then all the stuffed toys have to kiss him good night. We also keep a strict routine about when meal times and bed times are, to encourage a feeling of security.
DD has had some night terrors, but they are usually around over stimulation of a good kind, like a Christmas party for example. Its like her brain is just too full. When it does happen (rarely) I sit by the bed just to make sure she doesn’t fall out of it. Next day she doesn’t remember a thing.
Both of our kids were fostered and came to us pretty well adjusted (thank-you foster moms!), which I am sure helped. Also, we take the approach that we are now in our 40s and need our sleep too, in order to be effective parents.
May 25th, 2010 at 11:26 am
I think everyone here needs to understand that the Ferber method of sleep training isn’t a cry it out method. You go in at specific intervals to reassure your child until they fall asleep. You touch them, you speak, you do not ignore.
I co-slept for 4 months when we got home. I was not sleeping well at all during this time frame. I even kept it up a month after going back to work. Finally I had to give in and do the sleep training thing so I could function. It also was important because my child was not a good napper at all because I wasn’t there to co-sleep at nap time. I thought we were going to have a very difficult transition. But I decided that something needed to be done so we could both be rested. By day 3 Abby had it down pat. She now is a pretty good sleeper. And I would say her attachment is VERY good. Going by all the “good attachment” signs, she displays them all.
What I want to say is each child is different. Each child has different triggers for attachment and attaches at their own rate. Truly Truly, you need to go with your gut instincts and what your child tries to tell you in your day to day living in and go with what’s best for your child.
I just wanted to voice that the Ferber method isn’t a cry it out method….and reiterate that it is possible to have a sleep trained child whose attachment process isn’t damaged.
May 25th, 2010 at 11:53 am
And I’d like to point out that the sleep training I did with my child was on the advise of a child psychiatrist who has adopted from China twice herself.
Once again, there is no “one size fits all” approach. Only you can judge if all is well with your little one’s attachment. We felt like she was attaching to us very well before we did this. If she had been exhibiting signs of attachment issues, I would have continued the co-sleeping until that had resolved itself.