Sleep Update

I am happy to report that we've all been sleeping really well for the past week! We discovered our sleep solution sort of accidentally. Ray took the youth group on a winter retreat last weekend, and the thought of getting up 8 or 9 times a night with Jonas by myself was a bit overwhelming. I had been dreading it for weeks and came up with a plan. I was going to try a little experiment. So, our first night alone together I put Jonas to bed in his crib at his normal bedtime. Then the first time he woke up when I was ready for bed, I brought him into bed with me. I couldn't believe how much better he slept. He still woke probably as frequently as normal, but as soon as he would cry I would pull him a little closer to me and he would stop crying and go back to sleep right away. We were both sleeping again in less than a couple of minutes. The next night was the same way. No more rocking him in the rocking chair, standing up and swaying with him, trying to ease him into the crib, trying to calm him back to sleep by patting his stomach if he woke up on the way down to the crib, picking him up again when that didn't work, and starting the process all over again. So I told Ray the results of my experiment and he was all for giving it a try when he got home. We've kept the arrangement and we've continued to get better and better sleep each night. Jonas isn't waking nearly as frequently as he used to. He still starts out the night in his crib and he's even sleeping a little better there. Last night he slept from 8pm to 11:30pm in his crib without waking up. That doesn't sound that great, but trust me, it's a huge improvement for him. We're so happy to be getting good rest! It really makes all the difference. I've been a bit surprised by some of the very strongly negative reactions we've gotten from some people when we share our good news though. It's as if our new sleeping arrangement somehow directly affects them and they feel obligated to tell us "You'll never get him out of your bed!" So, if you feel compelled to tell us that, don't worry, we've already considered it. We've decided that getting Jonas to sleep well on his own is going to be a struggle no matter what. So we've chosen to get good sleep now, let him feel secure, and work on transitioning him out of our bed later when he has some verbal skills and can understand a little more that we're not going to disappear in the middle of the night.

Last weekend we also had our 3 month post placement visit by our social worker. Ethiopia requires reports at 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months post placement. The visit went very well. I mentioned to our social worker the problems we had been having with Jonas' sleep and that I had tried co-sleeping the night before. The social worker said that he sees major sleep problems with a lot of the adopted kids he follows. He said it's a combination of these kids' personalities and separation anxiety. I confessed to him that I sometimes felt like I must be doing something wrong to cause Jonas to sleep so poorly. He reassured me that we have done nothing wrong, In fact, he said he thinks we've been doing everything right. Yay! I've been trying to convince myself that Jonas' sleeping problems were not my fault, but have had trouble believing it sometimes. So it was good to hear it from our social worker's mouth. He thinks co-sleeping in our best option at this point. He doesn't recommend any kind of sleep training that involves leaving Jonas to cry alone in his crib for any time. He said it's obvious that Jonas is very attached to us, but not responding to him could cause him to regress in his attachment to us.

I've found that knowing that Jonas is going to sleep at night has given me a lot of freedom during the day. When he wasn't sleeping I analyzed and over-analyzed everything we did during our day. Anytime Jonas was exposed to new people or a new situation I would worry that it would make him wake up more at night. I was afraid of doing anything outside of our normal routine. I tried to do everything "by the book" and stressed out when Jonas decided he didn't want to cooperate with what the books said about when and how long he should be napping, how much he should be eating, etc. Now, I'm throwing the books away! I learned some good things from what I've read, but I've also realized that I need to follow my instincts, pay attention to Jonas' moods, and forget what the books say sometimes. Dr. Sears would be proud of me. :)