It Took Him Two Years to Do It, But...

...I think it's safe to say that Shav has finally--and I don't even know how to write it in such a way that it conveys the level of emotion I want to put into it--become a good sleeper.  My relief and gratitude are enormous.

(These are photos from long ago--maybe 9 or so months ago, in fact?  But since I never posted them, I decided to include them here as I look back at one aspect of Shav's life so far.)

Some of you who have known me for a while and have read this blog for several years might remember, in the back corners of your mind, that I had occasionally mentioned various sleep troubles that Shav was having.

Or maybe you don't remember, and that's OK; but simply for the sake of my own memory and convenience (so I have all of this information in one location), I'm going to link to some previous posts that mentioned his sleeping issues:
~ Shav was two months old, not sleeping through the night, and I was extremely tired.
~ Right after that discouraged post, Shav slept through the night for the first time.
~ Shav was four months and doing fantastic with nighttime sleep.
~ At five months, he had regressed to multiple night wakings.
~ Six months, and still doing terribly with sleep.
~ At seven and a half months, he took a fall that completely ended his thumb-sucking; and never again did he self-soothe by sucking on something.
~ By nine months, he usually made it through the night without needing me, but occasionally I nursed him.
~ When Shav was eleven months, I mentioned in this post that we were focusing on sleep-training again with him.
~ The month after Shav turned a year old, I poured out my heart as I wrote about my deep discouragement because of his lack of solid sleep skills.
~ By 14 months, he was doing better; but this post mentions a relapse.
~ In this 15-month post, I rejoiced in Shav's successes in the area of sleep.
~ When he was about 17 months, I wrote this post in which I puzzled and agonized over what was going on with Shav's sleep--specifically, his dislike of me comforting him (and I added more info in this follow-up post).
~ In this short post from the beginning of this year, I mention that his night wakings have continued.
~ In this Who-Shav-Is-at-18-Months post, I rejoiced that he had improved significantly in the area of sleep.

There's another post that should be included in this list; the only reason it's not is because I never wrote it.  But floating around in my head quite a few months ago was an idea for a post titled "Making Peace with Night Wakings," the gist of which was the fact that although Shav was still waking up most nights, I had come to grips with it because when he cried out, I would go to him, pick him up, give him a drink of water from a sippy cup (every night, in those days, I took a sippy cup of water upstairs with me and set it on my dresser, knowing that there was a good chance he would want a drink in the night), let him rest his head on my shoulder as I held him close for a little bit, then lay him back in his crib where he would get himself back to sleep again.  Even though it was a sleep interruption, it was a quick, easy one; and I had even come to appreciate that chance to spend a moment or two peacefully loving on Shav.  It was a nice post.  Too bad it never made it out of my head and onto the blog!

If I had written the next post in the saga of Shav and sleep, it would have been sometime after his second birthday; and in that post, I would have cautiously expressed my optimism that his sleep habits were actually definitively and permanently improving!  Now that he's already six months (to the day) past that birthday (happy half-birthday, sweet Shav!), I'm finding the details a little fuzzy in my head; but if my memory is correct, it really was right around the time he turned two that he showed the dramatic improvement that I had been looking for and longing for.  I don't know why the turn-around happened then.  Did he suddenly gain the maturity to calm himself when he woke in the night?  Did some physical discomfort he had been having go away?  I do remember that I had learned to watch him closely for signs of constipation since I had suspected that it might be causing pain which was waking him and making him inconsolable; and when he seemed to be heading down that road, I would spring into action and do everything I could to...ahem...help things along in that area.  (I'm sure he'll LOVE reading this in about 10 years.)  ;-)  But bottom line (pun totally intended), his improvement in the area of sleep was almost as mysterious as his troubles with it had been in the first place.  I never really figured either out.

Maybe I've said this before, but having three children who were TERRIFIC sleepers had made me wonder how in the world I would ever survive having one who wasn't (although I thought surely all of mine would be, because the only people who had children who were challenging sleepers were those poor souls who didn't do a good job of sleep training!).  Josiah, David, and Tobin had all responded extremely well to the principles of a loose, flexible Babywise philosophy; and I had delighted in the great sleep I started getting just two or three months postpartum in each case.  I'm not sure it ever occurred to me that it would be different with Shav.  Why would it be, after all?  I would treat him the same way, use the same eat-play-sleep basic schedule, and he would follow in his big brothers' footsteps by sleeping through the night sometime between 8 and 12 weeks of life!  News flash:  Shav wasn't a carbon copy of his older siblings, and he didn't respond the same way.  And I got to eat a huge slice of humble pie.  I hereby formally apologize to any mothers out there upon whom I looked down in my naive arrogance!!!

As Shav grew and developed and rode the roller coaster of great sleep followed by lousy sleep (forcing me to unhappily ride that roller coaster with him), I searched for the answer to his night wakings and grew increasingly desperate.  I never thought I would be able to handle TWO YEARS of unpredictable sleep.  As a matter of fact, I am rejoicing that I did not know, when he was born, what awaited me in that regard!  But now, six months after the major victory, what stands out to me is this:  I did it.  Night after night, I laid in bed, body tense as I heard his first cry, wondering whether he would settle down by himself, need me to soothe him briefly, or go into one of his intense periods of crying in which he refused to be consoled.  One night at a time, I tried to meet his needs, even when I didn't understand them, with as much peace and compassion as I could muster up when my own body was crying out for the refreshing unconsciousness of sleep.  The wheels of time rolled; and even when I didn't feel like it, they were bringing me closer to the point when Shav could join the ranks of Super Sleeper.  And by God's grace, I dealt with each night and nurtured Shav through that rough, long period of time.

As I look back, I see how, by having to deal with the mountain of sleep disruptions, that mountain shrank and become a molehill.  The anxiety and flat-out fear that I had carried with me when I thought about having to get up every night for an extended period of time has been replaced with a sense of peace and a perspective that is much healthier than the one I had 2+ years ago.  As I look ahead to the future and the changes that are coming my way in approximately two and a half months, I don't fret the way I used to when I think about getting up in the night with our new baby.  To be sure, I hope and pray that she is a good sleeper!  I'd love to be able to say she was sleeping through the night by the time she was just a few months old.  But I don't feel burdened by a sense of dread and despair when I consider the possibility that, in the area of sleep, she may take after her next oldest sibling more than the older three.

These days, as a two-and-a-half-year-old, Shav sleeps through the night almost every night.  Once in a while, I'll hear him awake and stir around; sometimes he'll laugh, sometimes he'll start talking to the cars and trucks he takes to bed with him.  :)  Usually he goes back to sleep with no assistance, and gratefully, so do I.  But occasionally, he'll call out, "Mom!"  I'll go to him, pick him up, give him a hug, and listen to his request--often for a drink of water.  If that's what he wants, I'll lay him back in his crib with a promise that I'll be right back.  I'll tiptoe downstairs, get a sippy cup and put water in it, then carry it back up to him.  With that in hand, he's content; and I'll tuck the blanket under his chin before I blow him a final kiss and shut the door behind me.  It doesn't happen often; but when it does, it's no longer cause for consternation for either of us.

Soon we'll be moving him to Tobin's room, where Shav will get to sleep in the bottom bunk (a double bed) and Tobin will graduate to the top.  I'm sure that transition will take some time for both of them to adjust to, but I'm not worried.  Although I wouldn't have chosen the two years of sometimes agonizing sleep issues that accompanied Shav, I am 100% certain that if not for that experience, I would not be nearly this calm as I think about the interrupted sleep that is fast approaching--possibly from Shav in his new bed and certainly from our baby girl.  "The testing of your faith produces patience," James, the brother of Jesus, teaches us.  So it does.

I didn't know that those night wakings I dreaded so fiercely were actually working to bring about a valuable maturity in me.  Patience.  Calmness.  Serenity.  Steadiness.  Thank You, God, for using this little darling...

...to teach me so much.