Evan Exile: Day 1
Evan slept in his crib for the first time last night. It was a nightmare. All night I was up worrying if he was swallowing his tongue or if he was scared or lonely… It was horrible. At least I had the comfort of knowing that with the movement sensor monitor we have, if he was choking on his tongue, or something serious was happening, once he quit breathing the alarm would go off. But how much of a comfort is that? Knowing he was relatively safe from some bizarre medical phenomenon, I moved on to other things to worry about. Like every time I heard him move, I was afraid he had spontaneously learned how to pull himself up on his own and he was going to end up falling out of his crib and break his neck. I’m never letting him drive. I’m just going to hire a chauffeur for him. Or send him to school in a plastic bubble. With a helmet.
Evan Exile: Day 2
Last night was much better than the first. Evan went down pretty easily, slept for 3 hours, but then was up on and off for 3 hours, and then slept for another 3. So overall, he did pretty good.
Evan Exile: Day 3
It took forever to get Evan to go to sleep last night. He knows what’s up now and is fighting every second of being put to sleep.
P.S. I put Evan in his crib this morning, went to brush my teeth, and came back to find him halfway through pulling himself up into a standing position in the crib. If he had, with his gigantic noggin, he would have tumbled out head first. Our backs are going to hate us for it, but we’re lowering the crib tonight.
Evan Exile: Day 4
Brad needed sleep so badly he gave up and brought Evan into our bed for the second half of the night. Evan didn’t sleep very well even in bed with us. Every time Brad shifted Evan would wake up crying, presumably because he thought he was being put down in his crib.
Evan Exile: Day 7
We can’t go through another week like this. Brad and I are walking around in a sleep-deprivation fog. We’ve been bringing Evan in at night after he wakes up around 11 or 12 and letting him sleep with us, but we’ve both been feeling like failures because of it. Today we decided that we are amending the Exile Strategy and that for the first couple of weeks we’ll put him down in his crib and then when he wakes up he’ll come to bed with us. Meanwhile, we’ll be working on getting him to sleep for longer durations by weaning him off the bottle at night.
Evan Exile: Day 12
Evan is still in his crib for the first part of the night and with us for the second half. Translation: the battle lines were drawn and we retreated. We have been bested by a baby.
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