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Contrary to what I may have intentionally led some to believe, the figure depicted on my Christmas card this past year was not the baby Jesus. Bill O’Reilly may have sparked some ire on the Late Show with his inaccurate tale of the Silent Night song being rewritten to satisfy so-called secular conspiracists, but I alone have the distinction of blasphemously using my offspring’s image for a holiday message filled with intentional ambiguity. Incidentally, I also used the word “holiday” inside of the card, as I do every year, since my list of 67 recipients contains at least one confirmed Atheist and one practicing Jew. It seemed the only decent thing to do, really, but that’s a tirade I’m not interested in persuing.

What really sparked the inspiration for the card design was nothing short of wishful thinking. My son, despite being over half a year old, has had sporadic success with sleeping throughout the night. At the time I came up with the design, “Silent Night” seemed a fitting concept on several fronts, but mostly as a way to set a goal for myself. As an artist with a tad bit of attention deficit, I need such visual motivation in my life.

I’m happy to report, though, that with minimal effort, that time has come to pass. And for the first time in several months, my wife and I have enjoyed a solid week of sleeping throughout the night. Here’s a brief overview of how for those who might be interested.

First, a cautionary tale. Yes, nothing may be more important to maintaining one’s sanity than sleep. It’s a boring cliché, but until I became a father, sleep was something I clearly took for granted. And when you’re half asleep only to be awoken every half hour by a crying voice over a baby monitor, it’s hard to keep an accurate account of who got up last to calm down the struggling infant. Inevitably, my wife and I exchanged accusations that it was the other’s turn to get up when in fact neither one of us was mentally prepared to back either assumption with anything more than our sleep deprived conjecture. Like semi-rabid owls or alley cats on Tuinal, we started to stress out and fight in the middle of the night. As it turns, keeping that kind of score was a bad idea in general, so we eventually devised a plan around it.

Instead of pretending to know whose turn it was, each of us would alternate in shifts, like night watchmen in some Medieval society. Every two hours we would switch the responsibility of tending to our baby—checking his diaper for leaks, making sure he had a pacifier securely in mouth, placing a hand on him and patting him down to a calm, or rocking him back to a resting state if all else failed. During that two hour period, the other’s job was to sleep. And vice versa throughout the night we went.

This worked, but as anyone would expect, it was a lot of work with seemingly little benefit. Liz and I both inherited choppy sleeping patterns filled with weird dreams of crying babies and flying robot zombies. Not to mention what our days were like. We had to come up with something better.

It’s largely assumed that the male of the species is less susceptible to a nurturing response at the sound of crying. But for whatever reason, I seem to worry more about my unguarded child. Is he too hot in in his room? Could he climb out of the crib, even if just by chance? Did I leave the iron on?

It probably has a lot to do with my tumultuous past but I tend to be the worry wart in the family. Ergo, I was not quite on board when the subject of “crying it out” came up. Even though our own pediatrician recommended it, as did every parent at work and on the block, clean cutting an attachment I’d worked so hard to build didn’t sit very well with me. Most of the books my wife and I read too, especially the ones by Dr. Brazleton, were against it as a practice. But clearly, something drastic had to be done.

That’s when my wife and I came up with our own method. It’s very similar to the Brazleton method, but customized to sedate my particular brand of worry. Learning from the effective parts of our timed model, we agreed to a method, which I believe, isn’t a harsh severing of the child/parent bond. Instead, it eases into a break, which encourages sleeping independence. Documented for your benefit, it all goes a little something like this.

1. Establish a bedtime routine and stick to it — This is very important. We bathe Cole, dress him for bed, calm him with soothing music, and read to him at the first sign of tiredness. Usually it’s very obvious as he rubs his eyes and yawns. Right before bed, he is given a feeding of warm formula which acts as a sleeping agent on most nights. There is very little deviation from this routine excecpt in extreme situations.
2. Put him to rest while he’s rested, but still awake — The goal is to make him learn to sleep on his own. By rocking him, patting him, or even entering the room at the first sign of distress, we were only reinforcing his need to have us present. But by putting him down and letting him cry a little, he became aware, I think, that he had to gain some control.
3. Walk away for 15 minutes — This was a shock to Cole on the first night, and it was admittedly hard for us. I may have only made it to 13 minutes the first time. He cried sincere wails, and loud ones at that, but we knew he wasn’t in any danger or pain. And setting a specific time, not for rescue, but for simple reassurance helped us as parents to learn about appropriate restraint. We continued the normal checks (diaper, binky, and feeding) but we vacated the room as soon as it became clear nothing more could be done. While there, we calmly talked to him, told him how much we loved him, and quietly spoke words of encouragement.
4. Repeat step three at the next cry, if necessary, but add another five minutes — The first night, we only had to go in his room maybe two or three times for reassurance. And by tacking on some extra time, I believe we began a process of building up his independent sleeping habit. At the same time, he knew we weren’t abandoning him either.
5. Repeat last step as necessary — Like I said, we only had to do this a few times for a few nights. At the time of this writing, he sleeps much, much better, and far more independently during the night.

Until there’s any other data to say otherwise, the Schindler method has been working just the way I, my wife, and most importantly, my baby want it to.

So, after all of that hard work and learning, I finally get to say it.

Good night one and all.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 8th, 2006 at 11:14 pm and is filed under journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.