Sleep Training and Scripture Study

We've reached that point that I'm so tired that I'm basically a living zombie.  I have dark shadows under my eyes, and I don't think I've ever really gotten those before.  Brian even remarked today that I look tired, and being a man, he doesn't usually notice things like that.  (Example 1: When Ethan was a baby and he was up a lot one night, Brian said the next morning, "Wow, Ethan must have slept through the night!  I didn't hear him at all."  In Brian's defense, since he's not the one getting up with the babies, his ears aren't tuned to their cries, so he usually just sleeps through it.  And Example 2:  Again, when Ethan was a baby, he was up all night and in the morning Brian said, "You know, with you getting in and out of bed to get up with Ethan all night long, I did not sleep well last night."  The funny thing about that one is that he didn't realize just what he was saying until he had said it, and he felt really bad once he realized it.)

So I'm tired.  Becca is up a lot at night.  She usually goes down around 9:30, then she's up around 11:30, then 1:30-ish, then sometime around 3:00, then she's on a pretty set schedule of waking up at 4:30, 5:00-ish, then just before 6:00.  Yeah, you can probably understand why I'm so tired.  It's gotten to the point that I sleep half the night nursing her in the recliner in half-hour long increments, then I wake up, put her in the crib, then go back to bed until the next waking, where we start the cycle all over again.  I'm so tired that I've been too tired to even try to break the cycle, which has just made everything worse.  And that's the whole problem, really.  Rebecca thinks that the best way to fall asleep is by nursing, and even though it's not the only way that she knows how to fall asleep, it is her preferred way to fall asleep, and now it's gotten to be so frequent through the night that it's time to teach her to fall asleep on her own. 

The other problem that she has is that she goes to bed too late for a baby, but I think that's just because she inherited Brian's night owl gene, because even when she was a newborn, she didn't really hit her night-time sleep until around 10:30.

So tonight was the official start to getting Becca to sleep longer through the night.  I started by beginning the whole bed time routine earlier, because she really should be going to bed before 9:30 pm.  I got her in her night-time diaper and pajamas around 7:20, then cuddled and nursed her for a while, which will hopefully be the last nursing until tomorrow morning.  We'll see if I stick to it!  Then I rocked her and sang our bedtime songs: "I Am a Child of God," "Jesus Once was a Little Child," "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus," "Teach Me to Walk in the Light", and the "Go to Bed" song.  (Notice how the order of these songs are even "sleep-deprived mom" friendly.  "Jesus Once was a Little Child" ends with, "try, try, try," which leads into "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus."  That song ends with, "for these are the things Jesus taught," hence "Teach Me to Walk in the Light."  I came up with this order when Marcus was a baby, and now matter how tired I am I can always make it through.  Usually.

Anyway.  After we sang and rocked, I put Becca in her crib and used the sleep cue, "It's time to go to bed."  (Right now that sleep cue doesn't mean anything to her, but hopefully it will soon!)  She wanted to play in her crib, so I let her.  I used the opportunity to catch up on my scripture reading and browsed Pinterest on my phone until she got upset and started to cry.  Then I went and picked her up, said "Mama's here," rocked her for 30 seconds, then laid her back down, saying some form of "Time for bed."  And then we did that over and over again, sometimes with her being happy for a few minutes, sometimes with her not being happy to be laid down, until she finally fell asleep just before 9:00.  The rule I give myself when I do this is that I don't pick her up until she's pulled herself to standing and reaches for me.  (I was standing beside the crib the whole time.)  I do this, because I think - hope! - that it tires the baby out faster to have to pull themselves up to standing in order to be held.

I didn't say anything but our cue words - "Mama's here," and "Time for bed" - the whole time, unless you count the times that Alyssa or Ethan tried sneaking in the room and I had to whisper, "Please leave.  I'm getting Becca to sleep," but I don't think Becca noticed any of those.

And now we get to the whole point of this long, winded post: that blessed moment when I laid her down, and she stayed laying down.  She pumped her arms up and down a couple of times, and then all of a sudden, in just about a matter of 5 or so seconds, her body slowed down, and she started to drift off to sleep, and then in about 10 more seconds, she was still and had gone completely to sleep.  It was the sweetest thing to watch, and even better, it meant that all that hard work paid off, and hopefully by doing this we'll both end up getting better sleep at night.

(FYI: a lot of my philosophy and strategies come from Elizabeth Pantley's book, "the No Cry Sleep Solution."  I love that book!)

And now, to make this post even longer, we'll talk about my scripture study.  Really, though, I'm contemplating staying up all night, because I think it will be easier to deal with Becca waking up if I'm already awake and not groggy from having to pull myself out of bed.  I'm in no hurry to go to bed, so I might as well keep typing.  I'm also still thinking that the edges of the school room walls need another coat of paint, so I might do that also.  Who knows?

So I've mentioned before how our Stake Presidency has challenged, or rather "encouraged," us to read the Book of Mormon every day this year.  I've been doing fabulous at following my plan to be finished reading through the Book of Mormon by the end of June, although I did miss one day - the Sunday of General Conference, because my daily schedule was completely thrown off, and I didn't even realize I had missed it until the next day.  Then, a few weeks ago, I had to take my phone into the shop to get the microphone screen replaced, so I was without it for a few days.

It's funny that being without my phone was such a big deal, but it really was.  I always read my scriptures when I put Becca down for her morning nap, and I read on my phone, because it's a lot easier to hold a phone while rocking a baby than an actual book.  The first day without my phone I put off scripture reading until I went to bed, but by then I was tired (sleep deprived - remember?) and I only read a couple of verses, instead of a whole chapter.  The next day I just didn't make it a priority, and I think I read a verse or two, and then the next day I don't even think I read at all.  It amazes me that in just a couple of days, something that had been a regular and important part of my routine for almost 5 months, suddenly became unimportant.  I went three or four days last week either not reading at all or just reading a few verses.  I've spent the last couple of days trying to get caught up to where I should be to be on track to finish by the end of next month, and I'm almost to where I'm supposed to be.

It just amazes me to look back and see the changes in my attitude and my patience level when I was either reading or not reading the scriptures.  (Although that could have been affected by the whole sleep deprived thing, too.)  I've finally truly realized just how important it is to get that daily feasting on the words of Christ, because I could feel the spirit of the Holy Ghost lessen on the days I didn't read.  I would wonder why I was so grumpy and short-tempered, and I would realize, "I really need to read the scriptures."  And now that I'm hopefully back to reading regularly, I feel so much better.  I'm still sleep deprived.  I'm still incredibly tired, and I probably have more right than anybody to be grumpy and short-tempered, but tonight I was able to lovingly get my baby to sleep (by herself!), then have family scripture study with the kids (by myself, because Brian had fallen asleep on the family room floor - guess I'm not the only one that's tired), and then tuck those kids into bed - all without losing my temper, or even feeling the urge to lose my temper.  And I attribute those successes to the added happiness and patience that the Holy Ghost brings to me when I choose to bring the Spirit into our home by reading the scriptures.

(I also read this article while Becca was playing in her crib tonight.  One of my friends pinned it on Pinterest.  She pinned it to be board titled, "a beautiful me," and I love that she's trying to be beautiful on the inside as well as the outside.  The article has guidelines for great scripture study, but what I really love about it was the part about how our brains are becoming hard-wired to respond to Facebook and email and blogs and such, and we need to spend a sufficient amount of time in the scriptures each day to re-wire our brains to think spiritually.)

Might as well make the post even longer.

In other news:

1. We went on an ice cream picnic with the Hollidays at Howard Amon Park, and we ended up throwing all our kids together in one house with one baby sitter while Brian and I and Dave and Adrienne went to go see "the Avengers."  We had so much fun at the park, and even though going to the movie was incredibly last-minute and definitely a bit of a crazy thing to do, it was so worth it.  It was an awesome movie!  Of the super hero movies of these characters, I've only seen the Iron Man movies, so now I need to get caught up with "Thor," and "the Hulk," and "Captain America," and then watch "the Avengers" again when it comes out on DVD.

Edited to add:  What do people who stay up all night do?  It's only 11:10 and I'm bored out of my mind.  I don't want to paint, because if Becca wakes up I'll have to leave a wet paint brush.  I started to upload our pictures to one of our picture blogs, but I'm tired, and that just wasn't exciting enough to keep my attention.  I'm going to bed.