Nighttime Parenting

Oh...hey, I have a blog?

I know I talk a lot about how I'm a really not great mom, but rather a perfectly acceptable mother. For the most part that's true, but I do think I nail a lot of the really important things on the head and then some of the other things I sort of....miss the mark on.

One of these things is Nighttime Parenting, a term I first came across while reading a Doctor Sears book where he stated, with a straight face, that 3 consecutive hours of sleep was considered "Sleeping Through The Night."

Three hours of sleep is not a night of rest, unless you're a robot and your name is Logan.

I am perfectly willing to admit in this public forum that I am an atrocious nighttime parent. It's one of the main reasons we decided to stop having babies after the second one who required a lot of nighttime parenting in the form of finding his God Damned Binky three or 4000 times a night.

I just don't feel like I'm the best parent I can be when I'm in the dark, crawling under a crib to retrieve 10 binkies and debating how terrible it would be to duct tape the stupid pacifier in to my beautiful son's mouth. Ha ha ha, I wouldn't really duct tape the binkies into his cry-hole. I'd only use band aids! (or super glue....)

The other night at 3am, Max came into my room, crying a little because he couldn't fall back asleep. So I explained that the only way to fall back asleep is to lay down and close your eyes and relax. (See, terrible nightime parent!)

But it could be worse, as it always can.

As a kid I used to have trouble sleeping in the night, I'd often have growing pains in my legs. My parents were also pretty bad nighttime parents (never mind the regular parenting...) and would tell me to "go walk around the coffee table until your legs don't hurt". So there I'd be for an hour or two in the middle of the night walking in circles around the coffee table until my leg still hurt but I was too tired to keep walking around the table and I'd go to bed.

So Max went back to his bed and proceeded to make the sound of a dying goat, the one he's made before. The one that makes me want to kill innocent puppies. Punch babies in the mouth. And burn my uterus in effigy. That sound is unpleasant at any time but especially at 4am.

I talked him down, pointing out that NO ONE CAN SLEEP when you make that horrible sound with your mouth. So try not making that sound and see if that helps your sleep situation.

But that's the problem with the goat sound he makes, he can't stop once he starts. So about 25 minutes into trying to talk him down off the ledge I gave up and said something along the lines of, "Fine! Lay in here and cry I guess because I don't know what to tell you!"

Excellent nighttime parenting. I could have maybe trumped myself by suggesting he pack his things and leave immediately which would have been helpful.

Luckily I'm not doing this whole parenting thing alone so Logan took over and got him to simmer down after 15 more minutes of explaining that sleep and bleating don't go together.

Maddie often tallies up the Favorite Kid score. She worries Max will win because she and I butt heads on just about everything. Like for example how she eats pizza, with cheese and tomato sauce, but refuses to accept pasta with cheese and tomato sauce as something edible.

The thing is Max will never be my favorite because of the nighttime parenting.

I guess they'll both have to be on equal footing.

Comments

[Fer]

i too suck @ the nighttime parenting thing. i think it's because i hate been woken up, so i'm not in a good mood when it happens, & with it after comes something i don't want to deal with even when wide awake...i.e. violently ill children...

[Hillary]

When my sister and I were sick in the middle of the night, we always waited until we were practically dying before waking up our mother. She's a good parent, but there is nothing comforting about a squinty-eyed, messy-haired woman clutching an arm over her bare breasts saying, "What do you want me to do about it? I can't puke for you!"

[Jess/Everydaydelights.net]

Nightime parenting is the worst. My 3 year old still won't stay asleep all night long...unless I let him sleep in my bed which is a never ending cycle. I love your description of the sound Max makes with his mouth! The last time you said you wanted to rip out your uterus and shove it down his or your throat..that was priceless I laughed so hard!! Sorry though, I know that it isn't funny at all to you when it's happening though :( I hope you get it on video to remind him what you went through when he's older lol.

[dana]

the rule in my house growing up was Never Ever wake Mom. Nighttime parenting was solely the responsibility of my father. It was just better for everyone involved.

[Lisame]

I'm so grateful my bonus child sleeps through the night. He's perfect. No. Really.

Hillary, are you my sister? My mother once asked us the exact same thing.

[Melissa]

My mother and father used to tell me the exact same thing when I would tell them I couldn't sleep. "You can't fall asleep standing there. Go lay down and close your eyes". It still doesn't work for me. If I can't sleep, I can't sleep. I was only allowed to go in my parents room and wake them up if I was ill or dying or bleeding. So I typically just read in my room until all hours if I couldn't sleep.
Of course, I never made the dying goat noise either...haha.

[Kate]

My husband is a great father, but from the moment his head hits the pillow he becomes the most useless human alive. So it's always mommy to the rescue.
But, I will admit that when I get the nighttime shove or the "Mom/mommy" I'm always so grateful when the answer to "What's wrong?" is "I had a bad dream" or even "I peed in my bed." as opposed to the one that puts a total end to any sleep that night:
"Mommy, I threw up in _______."

You just know that there's more coming where it came from and it could go on for hours.

[Miss Grace]

I am a terrible night time parent. There's a lot of Yelling and Saying Mean, Regrettable Things.

Sigh.

[Jodi]

My sister was always exhausted with four young kids. So when her second would have an asthma attack during the night, she'd tell him to go stand on the porch. In upstate NY. In the winter. (But it worked.)

[Deanna]

I don't know if this will help or not, but when I was a kid I always had a radio next to my bed. I never minded waking up in the middle of the night because I was always happy to listen to whatever was on. I was probably the only eight year old who listened to Larry King interview The Village People on the Mutual Radio Network. :)

[Corinne]

I used to suck at night time parenting until I figured out that if I didn't sleep with one hearing aid in (I have significant hearing loss in both ears), and took both of them out, then chances were, my husband would hear the night cries first and thus respond to them first. This works 60% of the time... if only because my husband is dead to the world when he sleeps, and after 30 minutes of screaming, I finally hear the kids crying and get up. Does that make me a bad parent?

[Laziza]

Oh, my God, Hillary, that made me laugh out loud.

[Jenn]

You know I understand this first-hand--and there isn't any answer besides just dealing with it, as you seem to have quite effectively, whether you know it or not.

Your sarcasm and wit came through loud and clear--a good sign that while completely out of sorts and exhausted, you can still find a bit of you.

Not sleeping is a form of torture for excellent reasons, and as far as nighttime parenting goes, I slid the booklet back across to my pediatrician. I will do whatever it takes to make her leave us be to sleep. If others don't like it, then let them have at it.

Great post!

[ella]

Is any parent good at night time parenting?
Who likes being wakened from a deep sleep?

My baby who is now 15 (thank goodness he can take care of himself now) crawled under our bed when he was 4 and threw up. Not once but twice. We had eaten spaghetti for dinner. My husband the genious thought there was a coyote in the yard trying to get in the house. We had just moved out to the country. So he ran outside in his underwear looking for this coyote.

I have to say I guess my mom was good at the night time stuff. I too suffered from terrible growing pains in my legs. SHe would get up and rub Ben-Gay on them and wrap them in towels and put a heating pad on them. Now if that isn't good parenting I don't know what is.

Damn! That was long. Sorry.

[Spacemom]

There is no suchthing as a "good nighttime parent"

[hippittee]

best line: "...burn my uterus in effigy"

Whining does that to me - regardless of what the clock has to say on the matter!

[Molly]

Is it weird that I'm a better nighttime parent than daytime? I just function pretty well at night, and I have no idea why. I feel bad saying this, but I'd rather get up six times at night than be pestered to death during daylight for no reason, which is my kid's current favorite thing to do. It's almost one in the afternoon, and I have already lost count of how many times today I've heard, "Mommy, I need something."

By all means, kid, be sure to let me know when you decide what it is. Better yet, please feel free to get it yourself unless it's candy. Or porn. The porn is all mine.

I'm 34 weeks pregnant and quite consumed with sitting down right now.

[kate]

I agree: "burn my uterous in effigy"? Genius.

And really, who, besides the laughably perfect Dr. F'ing Sears, IS a good nighttime parent??

[beyond]

when i couldn't fall asleep my parents would tell me that the only way to fall asleep was to lay down and close your eyes and relax and BREATHE.
now i don't know if that made them good or bad nighttime parents, but mostly it worked.

[MelissaS]

I think I'm going to show max a couple of yoga moves to try because I'm leaving town tomorrow for 5 bedtimes and I don't think he's going to be happy about it.

[MelissaS]

I think I'm going to show max a couple of yoga moves to try because I'm leaving town tomorrow for 5 bedtimes and I don't think he's going to be happy about it.

[courtney]

my only child is 5 months old, and i am thinking she might be the last because of the nighttime issues. it's already gotten better, i am getting more sleep with each passing month, but it's never enough, and i turn into a swearing, half-asleep monster when woken up at night, sometimes i don't even remember being up, but my lovely husband reminds me, oh yes, you were up and there was swearing involved. haven't had the puking yet, can't wait for that!

[Jess]

OMG the puking is the worst in the middle of the night, especially if you are asleep and they climb into bed then SPLAT it's all over you it's a real quick way to wake up..somehow though my husband can sleep through even that, but after reading these posts, I have a suspicion our husbands aren't really sleeping at all, just playing dead...

My parents used to tell me to turn around and face the wall when I had to go to sleep and that was all I remember.

[MelissaS]

Like opposums!

[jeffra]

You are fricken hilarious...nighttime parenting and working, sucks..so does getting bitten by the little mongrel in the night...where's the love? and then the next day comes and I like her again...only to go rounds again the next night. Enough to wonder...what makes a thining human want to do this again?! Oh..but I do love my little one..love how you keep running tally's on your two..

[shirky]

you don't really think dr sears got up in the night with his children do you? ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

There's a reason he writes 26 chapters on how Babies Just Need Their Mommies and one chapter on how Dad Can Help By Doing Dishes On Occasion.

[jeffra]

That was "thinking" not thining, I am definitely not thinning through this process. Nighttime parenting at work, once again...

[Catherine]

"Fine! Lay in here and cry I guess because I don't know what to tell you!" Pretty sure my mother said this to us daily/nightly, by the time we got a little older we realized this meant we'd reached her 'nighttime mom with sympathy' limit and then we shut our faces. She never realized if she had just cut to the chase from the beginning she could have saved herself a good 20 mins of our whining. haha, kids are cruel.

[Peeved Michelle]

My mom had it good, I guess. She sleeps like the dead because of medication she has to take before bed. After 15 minutes of getting no response to, "Mom! Mom! Mom!" I'd eventually give up and go back to sleep. Unles my legs really hurt! Growing pains sucked. She would put rubbing alcohol on them when I could manage to wake her up. It felt nice. Maybe some kid's tylenol would've helped, but I don't recall ever taking it unless I had a fever.

[Elaine at Lipstickdaily]

I was a robot for the first year of my son's life because of all the fricking nighttime parenting required. He didn't sleep more than 2 hours at a time for one.whole.year. Luckily he's made up for it by being a good sleeper now. Like everyone else, waking up mom when we were kids was a BIG no no. Geez, not even if you wet your bed. Find a way to deal with it. BUT.DON'T.WAKE.UP.MOM. Wonder what happened to that rule?

[Stephanie]

I love the way you describe "that sound he makes with his mouth"!! I would really really love to hear what it sounds like, so I hope you'll catch a clip of it for us someday. (And maybe use it against him when he's older!)

[the Mayor]

I spent the first half of my adult life working erratic shifts and being on call for obstetrics. Then had 6 children. I know what sleep deprivation is and it makes you crazy.
No doubt about it.

ps- My husband can (and does) sleep through anything.

[Becky]

My husband and I have a 15 month old and we play "crying baby" chicken. The little one wakes up at 4 am not hungry or hurt just looking for attention and the Mr. and I each play possum until the bad parent guilt creeps in. His possum is usually better than mine.

[Erika]

Is anyone a good nighttime parent?

[christy]

I remember being terrified to wake my parents up in the middle of the night, so it would take me a long time to make it up to their room, then it would take me a long time to open the door and walk in, and then I would ... just stand there. Maybe whimpering a little bit. Until my dad would open his eyes, at which point it would scare the shit out of him to see someone's face six inches from his.

After the entire process, I am pretty sure I got told to just go back to bed.

What is with my kids being totally comfortable waking me up, anyway? I think they need to be more scared of me.

[lisa]

As soon as it hits "bedtime" time, I can't even deal with jack from that point on. Even a sip of water is now an infringement on my precious little free time.

Whenever someone wakes me up during the night, I just admit defeat immediately and let them sleep in my bed and I move to the couch. Thankfully, this isn't very often, but I figure that 99 percent of the time when I march them back to bed, they invariably either cry (and then we're all awake) or they show up again some time later. I figure just get it over with, with minimal sleep disruption.

Lazy, possibly but effective at losing as few z's as possible.

[amy]

You know if I had ever THOUGHT of taping the damned soother to his mouth I would have tried it??

I too am a mother who NEEDS to sleep at night and if I could count the hours I spent ass up looking for son's damned soothers under the crib I would so totally call him on it. He is 16 now.

Now I am the mother who tries not to feel too guilty when she tells her 11 year old daughters "It is NOT 7.30 yet! I am NOT getting up for (X number) of minutes!!

Figure it is the least they can all do after what they put me through as babies/toddlers damn it. (And on weekends they do not even TRY to wake me before 10. Life DOES get better, trust me).

[amy]

And yeah, for the first 5 years night wakings meant crawling in with Mom... What can I say, have memories of nightmares as a kid. Would have loved to crawl in with Mom. Even at 11 the girls still crawl in on occasion. All good, they love me. But they KNOW NOT to wake me up ANY EARLIER than NECESSARY!

[amy]

Can you tell we missed you? Cause we did. :)

[Megan]

Hmmm...maybe there's something wrong with me too because the whole time I was reading your post I kept thinking "I wonder when she'll get to the part where she's a bad parent?". And you're parents?....well, apparently walking around the coffee table worked, right? Problem solved as far as I see it! I hate to sound like a mean mommy, but I have no problem devoting my whole day to my dear children, but at bedtime, I expect to be left the hell alone. I really don't care what they do in the bedrooms, just don't come bother me. I guess puking is excused, as is hemorrhagic bleeding, but otherwise do not leave your room. And I have to say, with three kids I can count on ONE hand the number of times they've woken me up since they were 5 months old.

[Suebob]

I was the fifth kid. I got told "Go in there and go to sleep right now!" a lot. They were DONE with the nighttime parenting.

But you know what? I think it is good for kids to not think they are the Entire Center of the Whole Freaking Universe all the time. At least that's what I tell my therapist.

[Mental Momma]

Reminds me of a conversation I had with a girlfriend when our two kiddos were babies. She looks at me bleary eyed and says "I don't care who it is, when someone wakes you up in the middle of the night, you hate them."

[Jenn @ Juggling Life]

The youngest of my 4 children is 14. From about the age of 3 they knew that unless vomiting or a break-in was involved they'd better figure it out for themselves. They did and I don't see any ill-effects today. Why should I be awake because YOU can't sleep?

[mrs. vj]

All I can say is...thank GOD I'm not the only one who feels this way.

I've got a 3 month old and a 2 year old and I return to work in 3 days. I'm totally f****d.

[Marcie]

One night, after being woken up about three times by my five year old, I said to her, tomorrow night I'm going to come in here and wake you up three times out of a dead sleep. See how you like that!
Very mature, no? I'm a horrible nighttime parent.

[truism 31]

RT mental momma "I don't care who it is, when someone wakes you up in the middle of the night, you hate them."

True Dat!

[rbiggs]

Love form the worst nighttime parent of all time!

[Nicole]

I am so thankful to find others out there who are terrible nighttime mothers. I finally know I'm not alone when my kids come in and tell me they're scared and I reply that their nightmares are a lot better than what's going to happen for waking me up.

[mythoughtsonthat]

"sleep and bleating don't go together"- that just made me laugh out loud!
Actually, I'm a pretty good nighttime parent. My mom was a terrible nighttime parent and I guess I didn't want to be like that. But most people I know are NOT good at nighttime parenting. At least they grow up and out of that eventually!

[Kimberly]

As a kid we knew to wake Mom not Dad. A sleep disorder runs in Dad's family you can never really be sure one of us is truly awake after being woken from a deep sleep. One time I woke Dad because I couldn't breath (asthma) he told that I shouldn't be swimming in the middle of the night.

It wasn't that unusual for me to wake and find one parent in my other twin bed and the other in Sis's bed with sis diagnonal across their bed.

On the other hand Mom endured a large number on weird conversations with sleep walking/talking children and spouse.

Sis would play games on a playground or bad -got lost on the way to the bathroom (her daughter has done the same).

I frequently "robbed" the house (sometimes thinking it was a museum) or I was fighting demons/aliens.

I'm not sure what Dad's conversations were about.

[Formerly Gracie]

Well, I'm a terrible dinnertime parent, which leads into nighttime, so I guess I'm a pretty bad nighttime parent too.

I just can't stand all of that "testing boundaries" crap when all I want to do is eat and finish a sentence that doesn't begin with "Please finish your..."

[Jennifer]

Lmfao, kudos for admitting this! I'm quite lucky to have a child who sleeps as if in a drug-induced coma. But the few times he has had some sort of nightmare or health concern, I just let him get into bed with me and he'd be out like a light! Lazy, yet effective!

[Jennifer]

Lmfao, kudos for admitting this! I'm quite lucky to have a child who sleeps as if in a drug-induced coma. But the few times he has had some sort of nightmare or health concern, I just let him get into bed with me and he'd be out like a light! Lazy, yet effective!

[Pamela Goldsteen]

My husband, bless him, has, for the most part, been the designated nighttime parent in our household. I wonder if this is because I suffer from depression, and although I have it under control with medication, my mood can be gravely affected by lack of sleep. And since I am the parent at home during the day, if I am sleep deprived, I am more likely to snap unnecessarily at our children.

So I am grateful to my husband for this, and when he gets home from running errands, I will remember to tell him so.

[Stella]

Ah, Melissa, you're always good, but sometimes you're perfect!

I hope you enjoy your 5 consecutive nights of sleeping through. I will be lying awake laughing out loud about this post.

[pixie sticks]

I hate Dr. Sear's with every fiber of my being.

[tory]

I'm pretty good at the nighttime parenting...I have an uncanny ability to tune everything out until the good nighttime parent wakes up and handles it.

Oh, and I am in the Weissbluth camp all the way...(behavioral therapy background and Sears do not mix well).

[Funkidivagirl]

I solved night time parenting with letting my kids sleep with me. A good night's sleep was more important to me than having them sleep alone.

However, I have a new puppy and I'm back to not sleeping at night. Bringing the puppy in the bed with me is not an option, so I am SO TIRED THESE DAYS!

I am a terrible night time puppy mommy.