The Wonderful, Magical Sleep Consultant

We failed. We failed horribly. We failed miserably. We failed undeniably.

Choose your adverb, it really doesn't matter. We. Failed.

At least that's what I thought as we prepared for our first Skype call with a sleep consultant a couple months ago. As the call slowly connected across a national border, I sat there with my head in my hands. How did it come to this?

In the past three months, Annabelle's sleep had become a nightmare. She wouldn't fall asleep until we sat with her for about 90 minutes every night and then, like a horrible, never-ending alarm, would wake up every night around 1 AM and refuse to go back into her crib. For a while, we took her into our bed and then, in a flash of groggy common sense, we realized at least one of us should sleep. So Bridget and I rotated nights sleeping in the guest room with Annabelle "I put my butt up while I sleep" Briddon.

And if you've ever had an extended period of crappy sleep in your life, you know how terrible it is. You fear bedtime. You're irritable. You can't think. It's awful. I sent up a white flag disguised as a blog post in July. 

And that's when Bridget's college friend Kate (who I don't know, but basically love) told us about this sleep consultant she'd used.

"She saved our lives," Kate told Bridget.

"A sleep consultant?" Mike asked Bridget. "That exists? Come on. Are we really at that point? How much will this cost?"

As it turned out, Rock A Baby, run by Desiree Cluff out of Vancouver, had very reasonable prices. (Plus, when you're essentially purchasing sleep, does it really matter?) Still, it was reasonable, and we were excited and a little bit skeptical going into our first Skype call.

Ninety minutes later, we had a plan and a glimmer of hope.

During the next few weeks, we slowly inched our way out of Annabelle's room at bedtime and she slowly gained confidence in her sleeping ability. The biggest change: Choices. Instead of sitting and watching Annabelle play with her feet for 90 minutes, we would say, "Annabelle, it's time to close your eyes. If you aren't ready to do that, Daddy has to leave." She'd cry, realize she was really tired, and be asleep 10 minutes later.

Ninety minutes of "trying to fall asleep" turned into 60. And then 45. And then 30. And then we had a couple nights of uninterrupted sleep.

With applied the "Choices" strategy to food, cleaning up her toys, and other areas of typical toddler frustration. Sometimes it's exhausting to come up with two reasonable options, but it gives Annabelle the feeling that she has control over every situation. (Although let's be honest, she pretty much does.)

After about six weeks, we slowly, cautiously raised our arms in victory. We stopped the weekly chats with Desiree and sunk into our cool, refreshing pillows.

Sure, we still have to figure out the pacifier. And we should probably feed Annabelle something other than her staples of pasta, fruit, pizza, and yogurt. But now, thanks to a sleep consultant (who knew?), we have some energy to tackle the next batch of toddler challenges.

Behind the Lines of a Sleep Strike

I'm tired. I'm tired as I write this and I'll be tired when anyone reads this.

The problem, you can probably guess from the title of the post and the image above, is that a good night of sleep has been hard to come by in our house lately. Like, really hard. Lovely little Annabelle, who turns 2 in September, has developed some quirky sleeping, er, waking habits in the past couple months.

And man, I am tired.

As I wrote back in March, after 18 months of being a great sleeper, Annabelle went through the 18-month sleep regression. But several weeks later, the regression regressed and we were back to our 7 PM - 6 AM routine. A bath, a few books, a kiss on the cheek and it was off to binge watch House of Cards. While watching Frank and Claire lie and cheat their way to power in Washington, Bridget and I would have carefree chats about politics, snow, and the future. Ah, the good, old days.

Then on May 10 (thanks, Day One journal app) Annabelle woke up at 3:30 in the morning with vomit in her crib. We cleaned her up and figured our bed was the best place for her for the rest of the night. The next night, same thing. Vomit, our bed. Next night, same thing.

And since then, well, it's been kind of a nightmare.

Annabelle stopped throwing up that third night (just a stomach bug, we think), but she was suddenly scared of sleeping in her crib. She'd eventually fall asleep, but not without one of us in the room. Then, almost on a schedule, she'd wake up around midnight or 1 AM and scream until we finally relented. Some nights we slept on her floor or in the wooden rocking chair in her room, but other nights we were just too damn tired and brought her to bed.

(If you're a parent, this is where you're judging us and saying: Never bring her into your bed!) 

We tried the "cry it out" technique one night, but she screamed for 3 1/2 hours and then fell asleep standing up. With the light on. (That's the picture you see above. I snapped a quick shot to celebrate the moment.)

It was a brutal night and we decided it wasn't for us. We also decided that our bed wasn't the best spot (Annabelle tends to form the middle of an "H," which isn't good for anyone) and we started switching off nights in the guest bed with Captain Sleep Strike.

But now we're in a tough spot. Sleeping well at night, it is well documented, is incredibly important for your health and well-being. (The New Yorker had a great three-part series on sleep this week.) Without enough sleep, it's hard to perform well at work and, well, at life. And we just don't get good shut-eye.

Instead, we sit for an hour with Annabelle until she finally falls asleep. Then, a few hours later, she's up and we're drawing straws to see whose turn it is. Is it sustainable? Maybe for a bit. Is it good? Not for anyone.

So, friends, if you have any advice or words of wisdom, our ears are wide open. Unfortunately, so are our eyes.

Belle's Magic Suit

It costs $39.95. It weighs 15 ounces. Its dimensions are 11 x 10 x 3 inches.

But that’s not really how you measure the appropriately named Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit. The only measurement that really matters is this: Hundreds of hours of sleep.

Now, I’ve been a Dad for only four months. I still don’t know much about milestones, daycare, and development stages. But I know that Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit is the greatest thing that anyone has ever invented in the history of the world. Ever. In the history of the damn world! EVER!

In fact, you should buy one now. Seriously, here’s the link. If you find your way back to the blog post, cool. If not, I really don’t mind.

But, Mike, my partner and I aren’t planning to have any children. Doesn’t matter. Buy one anyway. Okay, maybe that’s a bit too far, but this thing, man, this thing!

(Now is a good time to note that I'm not a paid advertiser for Baby Merlin's Magic Sleepsuit. Honestly, who would pay me to advertise something?)

Baby Merlin's Magic Sleepsuit is, without question, the one thing I would tell every new parent to buy. Sure, you need diapers and bottles and bibs. You need clothes and pacifiers and a crib. You need blankets and wipes and a stroller. But you need Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit.

At first glance, of course, it was just another piece of clutter. It drew my typical doubting, raised-eyebrow glance and patented four questions:

• “Do we really need that?” 
• “How much did it cost?” 
• “Where are we going to put it after it doesn’t work?” 
• “Really?” 

In fact, when Bridget brought it home from a store or ordered it from Amazon (it’s hard to know anymore), I actually thought it was a scam: “A suit to help babies sleep? Did it come with magic beans? If I look out the window, will I see a giant stalk?” (I continued with this hilarious line of questioning for a while until I realized Bridget was in a different room and had stopped listening after the word “suit.”)

It took only one night before I realized the power of Merlin’s magic. Belle, knock on wood, has been a pretty darn good sleeper so far. Even in the first couple weeks, she was going down for four or five hours at a time. Bridget and I were tired new parents, but it wasn’t unbearable. Then the suit happened and, bam, she slept from 10 PM – 6 AM. We’ve been using it for about two months, and those four or five hours have consistently become 10 hours.

How does the suit work? Well, it’s magic, so how the hell would I know? The website says this: “The Magic Sleepsuit is designed to be introduced at approximately three months of age when most babies are growing out of swaddling, transitioning into larger more spacious cribs from smaller sleep environments … it provides babies with the comfort they need by helping to muffle their twitches and startle-type movements that can wake them prematurely, and by keeping them cozy and secure making it easier to go to sleep on their own or fall back asleep if woken.” 

Like I said, magic. If you don’t believe me, check out the testimonials on the Sleepsuit site. So many testimonials, right? (If you didn’t click the link, basically, it’s people using lots of exclamation points.)

Does it make Belle look like the kid from A Christmas Story? Sure, but who cares? That movie is a classic. She and I will watch it together someday and I’ll tell Belle about her magic suit.

I really hope she’s still sleeping through the night then.