BabyShrink

Weird Pregnancy Dreams? I Need Yours!

Miriam in Winter Park, Florida emailed me with some fascinating questions about dreams; whether her baby Griffin could be having them at night when he whimpers and cries in his sleep, and about her own dreams, when she was pregnant with him.

There’s a great article here if you want to read about infant dreams, and I like the Dr. Greene site in general. So check that out. But before you go over there, finish this post, because I need your help. I’m planning a series on Pregnancy Dreams, and I want your submissions!

This photo is of me, 9 months pregnant with our first child. I have a pregnancy journal from that time and it's incredible to read about the wild and crazy dreams I was having then.

I’m fascinated by dreams, and there are some interesting commonalities among pregnancy dreams. They tend to be unusually vivid, action-packed, and bizarre. We tend to remember them better than dreams we have at other times of our lives, too.

Miriam recalls, from one of her pregnancy dreams:

I'm boiling potatoes in a giant stock pot on the floor in the kitchen. There is no steam, but I know they're boiling. I'm stirring them with a long-handled slotted-spoon. The water begins to boil away and now I am sauteeing them in the same pot. My husband is trying to get me to make some chicken, then says that we need to go burn the marshland to get rid of the mosquitoes. I tell him we have to talk to the committee about it.

Right off the bat, I’m thinking of “cooking the potatoes” as a metaphor for pregnancy. But I need Miriam’s reflections and associations to help better understand the rest of the meaning of the dream. She included some of the background in her email to me, so when I compile the series, I’ll be able to share some of my interpretations with you.

I hope you’ll dig up your pregnancy journals and submit some of your own dreams to me in the Comments section below, or at BabyShrink[at]gmail.com, and I’ll include them with the series.

It promises to be fun, interesting and illustrative of the powerful experience of pregnancy!

Mom Kelley Tells Us How Ben is Sleeping Now

Yesterday, I posted the first half of my conversation with Kelley, Mom to 13-month-old Ben. Ben was making his parents crazy from lack of sleep, and they were desperate enough to try anything.

I gave them some suggestions designed to send Ben a clear, consistent message about sleeping through the night, in his own crib. Read on to see what happened!

Dear Dr. Heather,

I am happy, so happy, to report that Ben is now sleeping in his crib and more often than not, sleeping through the night! We still stay in his room until he falls asleep, but he has accepted the crib and sleeping on his own. And once, he even fell asleep AFTER we left the room. 

Thanks so much for your advice. Although he still cries almost every night, it's more of an unwinding cry, not a distressing cry that I associate with the "cry it out" method. Ben wakes up in a good mood because I think he's proud of himself for being such a big boy! My husband and I needed to get used to sharing a bed, but it didn't take long for us to feel like a married couple again.

We started by creating a game plan based on your suggestions.  Our first goal was to get him to go to sleep in his current bed (mattress we placed on the floor of his room) without us snuggling him. To do that, we started by talking to him about going "night-night" by himself and how mommy and daddy loved him very much and how proud we were of him. Then after his bath, we made a production about saying "goodnight" and my husband left the room while I stayed and sat at the end of his bed. When he got up to come to me, I placed him back on his pillow and told him that I loved him and it was time to go "night-night."

It took about 45 minutes, but he finally realized that I wasn't going to snuggle him and he focused on getting comfortable and eventually fell asleep. In the beginning, he woke up a couple of times during the night and we had to snuggle him down once or twice. We did that for about a week and then we re-introduced him to his crib by putting him in during the day with some of his toys. That night, we did our same bedtime routine, made a production with kisses and good nights and then I put him in his crib and told him to go "night-night." Me or my husband leave the crib and lay down on the bed in his room. He still sits up and cries, but when we tell him to go "night-night" he immediately lays down and stops crying while he rolls around trying to get comfortable. We may do that a couple of times, but the key is that he knows that we aren't going to be picking him up. We will soon start leaving the room while he is still awake, but we are so happy with our situation now, that we will not force the issue.

Talking to him about exactly what we were going to do was probably the most important aspect of our plan (that, and following through with it). 

I never would have thought that he would understand what I was saying to him. It's actually funny to watch him throw himself down in his crib when I tell him that it's time to go night-night. He understands right away.
 
When he wakes up in the mornings, we rush in to get him and tell him that we are so proud of him for sleeping all by himself and how much we love him.

I swear it's changed our relationship because I'm communicating with him so much more than I did before you suggested it.

We're all happier now and better able to handle the stubborn, independent behaviors that he is starting to demonstrate. ;-)

He really seems happier than before. Thanks again for your guidance!

What has worked for you to get your baby to sleep through the night, in their own crib? Post a comment to share your ideas!