Our Family Blog: a how to guide for getting jude to nap

As I've mentioned (probably over and over...and over and over), Jude is not exactly easy to get down for a nap. I've heard tales of babies who just fall asleep in the middle of playing when they're tired, of infants who sleep most of the day and night away, of children who can be put into the crib awake and transition themselves to peaceful slumber. In our house, those things are about as likely to happen as a unicorn prancing through the living room with a leprechaun on its back. We spent the first two months of Jude's life doing the walk/bounce/shhh/lullabye/pacifier/pleasejudefortheloveofallthingsgoodfallASLEEP! combo. We'd combine these things in a array of frustration and exhaustion, doing our best to get our sweet boy to fall asleep. I thought he might be overtired...so I'd try getting him to sleep at the first signs of yawning. I thought he might not be tired enough...so I'd try wearing him out thoroughly before putting him to sleep.

Eventually my exhausted self came to the conclusion that Jude was going to cry before falling asleep. He could either cry for twenty minutes in my arms, or he could cry for twenty minutes in his crib. The place where all that crying took place didn't seem to matter to him. Since it was much healthier for my state of mind to let him cry in his crib - that's what we tried. After a day or so, I realized that Jude actually cried less when we let him "cry it out" in his crib. It's almost as if he prefers to be left to himself to settle down to sleep. We had a pretty good routine going when Jude was diagnosed with failure to thrive. Mommy guilt overtook my brain and heart, and I couldn't bare to hear my sweet boy crying as I could almost hear him screaming, "I'm hungry! I'm not tired! Please, please give me food!" So at the slightest whine from my boy, I fed him. After a couple of weeks of him putting weight back and doing well, I realized that he probably wasn't getting enough sleep because I was feeding him when he was upset from sleepiness. So we went back to the walk/bounce/soothe Jude to sleep ourselves method, and he went back to taking 30-45 minutes to wind down for a nap, and sleeping for 20 minutes at best.

After Jude's last appointment, I decided that I could put fears of starving my child out of my mind, and work on helping him figure out how to settle himself to sleep. The first couple of days were brutal, but after about a week, he only cries for six or seven minutes on average. I actually just put him down for a nap, and I think he cried a total of four minutes (and yes, I still agonize every minute that he's crying).

So here's what we do:

1. About an hour and a half after he eats, Jude starts to get super whiny. I check to make sure he's not bored (give him another toy, change the scenery), and if he's still whiny, I assume he's probably tired. Usually when I pick him up, he confirms it by rubbing his eyes or mashing his face into my neck.

2. I take Jude back to his nursery, turn the lights off, and start his lullabye playlist on my iPod. The first song is a lullabye version of the Beatles' "Across The Universe." Sometimes I wonder if he'll always associate that song with sleepy time. I picture him as an adult, hanging out with his wife, listening to the Beatles. Across the Universe plays, and bam! he drops fast asleep. Excuse my twisted sense of humor, but that scenario really amuses me.

3. With Jude on my hip, I put a pacifier in his mouth and let him cuddle against my neck for a minute. This usually involves him smearing his drool all over my shirt, rubbing his eyes, pulling out the pacifier, etc. I only do this for a minute or so. My theory is that Jude is such an active and alert baby. I think he has a difficult time "turning off" his brain and settling to sleep. By having a very specific routine and giving him a minute or so to realize, "oh, it's time to fall asleep," I hope to help him figure out how to turn that active brain of his off.

4. I swaddle Jude in a specialized velcro swaddling blanket. To be honest, it resembles a straight jacket. I wish Jude didn't have to be swaddled...he hates it. I've tried several times to put him down without swaddling, but his fists automatically go up to his eyes and keep him awake. As he's napping, the jerking of his arms and legs usually wakes him up if he's not swaddled. Jude's too feisty for a normal blanket swaddle...he's out of those things in 60 seconds flat. Hence the straightjacket.

5. I hold a swaddled Jude in the crook of my arm (with his pacifier in his mouth) and stand next to his crib, swaying with him for a minute or two. Sometimes his eyes close at this point, sometimes he gets super fired up and fussy.

6. Regardless of what he does, after a minute of swaying with him, I lay him in his crib, in the middle of this sleep positioner (another protection against his feistyness...he ends up on the opposite end of the crib with his head up against the crib rail if we don't keep him in it). I tell Jude goodnight, and that I love him, turn on his monitor, and leave.

7. I let him cry for ten or fifteen minutes. For most babies, I think it would be sufficient to let them cry for ten minutes. With Jude, I learned that going in too early would often rile him right up to cry even louder, harder, and longer. If I stayed away for fifteen minutes, he would usually settle himself by that point. I try to keep myself busy - folding laundry, answering emails, writing a blog...anything to keep myself from listening to his crying. When we first started doing this, I'd sit outside his door and cry right along with him. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend that. Do something productive.

8. If he's still crying after ten to fifteen minutes, I walk in and put the pacifier in his mouth. It usually involves having to jiggle it in there a little bit to get him sucking on it, and lots of, "shhhh shhhh shhhhh" -ing. Whether or not that settles him down, I leave again.

9. I wait another ten or fifteen minutes and repeat.

Since we've gone back to doing this after his FTT diagnoses, I rarely have to go in more than twice. He did cry on and off one afternoon for almost an hour, and I eventually picked him up and rocked him to sleep. For the past four or five days, though, he rarely cries longer than ten minutes. He's progressively crying less and less. Actually, he went down for a nap yesterday for Shawn without crying at all! That would mark the second time he's ever slept without crying first.

Once he regularly falls asleep with minimal crying, I'll work on phasing out and shortening parts of his naptime routine so he doesn't need all of those things to fall asleep.

So my friends, that - in a very long winded nutshell - is a how-to manual for getting Jude to nap.