Finally, a funny co-sleeping video. By Dads too.

We still co-sleep, first with one kid, who comes in herself, and then, later, with the second kid, who I have to go get and carry in.  We believe strongly in this, that it is right for our children and right for us as parents.

Yet, despite that, it often, well, ummm, sucks.  So bad.

Over at How To Be A Dad, they’ve been putting out priceless graphics on the horrors of co-sleeping.  What I love about this is the acceptance of co-sleeping as the norm, so much that they can poke fun at it without getting all caught up in the parenting sleep wars.

Plus, they are funny.

And now they have a video:

learning the secrets of baby sleep the hard way

Living in Sweden, I do not have access to baby books.  Usually I do not think this is a problem at all.  I do not think much of baby books.

But I just found an excellent post on Parentsask.com about baby sleep by Elizabeth Pantley, the author of the very popular No-Cry Sleep Solution.

She lists six things important to know about baby sleep.   I knew all of them, though not because I read a book.  Nope, we picked up on them through painful experience.

Oh, so the kids do sleep better with a 6pm bedtime, even if that seems crazy early.

Oh, the baby might need that last 30 minutes of a 2 hour and 45 minute nap or he’ll be a mess all day.

Oh, the baby does need the white noise all night.  Maybe I shouldn’t try to break that habit in a cottage in the Swedish forest in the summer when it never gets dark and the kid sleeps more lightly anyway.

Now I’m the expert, but a lot of good that will do me when the kid is pointing at the stroller wanting to go for a walk at 4:30 tomorrow morning.

the summer solstice and baby sleep intersect in sweden

Time and light get all mixed up in Daddyland.  Today is the summer solstice, and I just came in at 8pm from sitting in bright sunshine in our park, the sun not to fall for hours and hours yet.

My first summer in Sweden I could not sleep for the light, no matter whether the blinds were down, whether I had my eyes covered, my body just would not slow down until midnight and started waking up at 3 in the morning.

It was awful.

Spring is cold here, and this means the solstice has an edge.  It is only the beginning of summer, yet the light is already fading, bringing just the slightest hint of the winter darkness that looms mostly forgotten through late June and July (you start to remember with the first yellow leaves in August).  Yet it is still the beginning of summer, and we will be out in the country, even farther north, where it will be lighter than even today in Stockholm, and there will be blueberries and fishing and digging and sleeping.

Our children are curiously unaffected by the summer.  Last year NK was up to 9 each night, too wound up by the sun to get to sleep.  This year she asks to go to bed at 5, and is drifting off by 6:15, “so tired from running with Tilla all morning.”

And the baby has started sleeping through the night, which is a miracle, except that it is his definition of night.  He goes to bed at 6:30 himself.

And wakes up between 3:45 and 4:15, just like he always has, ready to play, in the darkest nights or now when the sun is already up.

I actually tried to cut out caffeine last week.  I felt it was making me jittery.

Huge mistake.  Never underestimate how tired a 4am wakeup makes you.

Now I am sleepy at 8:15 on the longest day of the year.  Once I would have stayed up late to celebrate, but I have my long days already, and the next one starts at 3:45 tomorrow morning.

the injuries of attachment parenting

We like to think we are attachment parents, particularly when it comes to baby sleep.  We co-sleep, and what is more, our 14-month-old is learning to walk, meaning he walks in his sleep, meaning he still needs me to hold him in the middle of the night to keep him asleep.  I also have to rock him to sleep for all his naps and other night wakings.  I also slept with him on my arm quite often.

And my arm hurts.  Like really hurts.   E thinks I have a repetitive stress injury and wants me to go to a physical therapist.

I’ve had all sorts of other baby injuries – mostly a sore back (the worst was bouncing NK to sleep on an exercise ball) – but every parent is bending and lifting and carrying, right?

This is different.  This is a strain from his head resting on my bicep, from the bouncing and rocking, as he gets heavier and heavier, and laying down with him on my arm.

I keep hoping that he will settle down once he learns to walk.  It is my mantra through the long nights.

But meanwhile, maybe I do need to see that physical therapist.  Or look up stretches online.

Do you think they have workman’s comp in Daddyland?

I need a healthy right arm too.  How else will I play catch with my American kids?

paternity leave in Sweden follows slower rhythms

In Daddyland, the rhythms are slower, less modern, centered around the baby.  I like that.  I like slowing down the pace of my steps, not rushing to the subway, having to stop and listen to my crying son or wait for a toddler to fill an empty box with snow.

It changes the way I think – less about career and the latest sports scores and that latest assignment at work.  More about … well, life – parenthood, death, joy, play, religion, myth, stories, writing (and not the grind it out kind).

I’m not sure this would be true if I was a stay at home dad in the US, because then it is your life and maybe you cannot help but get connected and revved up and, anyway, you have to make your life happen – the playdates, the driving around, all that.

Here, Baby B and I walk NK to daycare.  We walk to open preschool.  We walk to the store.  Once the snow melts or the baby walks, we will walk to the park and the sandbox and the mud.  I am acutely aware of the smallest change in light and season now, of the depth of the puddles of melted ice and the dampness of the sand in the sandbox and what precise time the sun goes down relative to bedtime or breakfast time (these things are also more heightened in Sweden, where the weather and the light and the seasons are so distinct and so dramatic and so crucial to your state of mind).

Also, I am an expat, and already in a slightly separate place, out of context.  I am not sure I am this dreamy in, say, Los Angeles.

Sometimes, however, the slower rhythms are too slow.  Right now, I am trapped by baby sleep, not allowed out of a five minute walking radius of our very small apartment.

Baby B gets sleepy when we walk his older sister to daycare.  Sometimes I can rush him to open preschool in time to stay awake, but only the closest open preschool, which I am not really feeling this time around.   We can go no other places (until the snow melts or the baby crawls) because he just falls asleep.

If he does sleep, I rush home.

Today, I tried the third option.  I came home when he was awake.

Didn’t work.  He was too tired and not distracted.  He kept falling down and reaching for things he could not have.  He cried as he drifted off to sleep in my arms.

I could leave our little zone when he sleeps, but I am not ready to give up my own writing time, my own nap, my own quiet just yet.  I am not all that dreamy if I am shopping while he sleeps or on a train.  Plus, he does not sleep that long in the stroller, and I shudder at the thought of an afternoon with him after a 30 minute nap, especially after we pick up the tired toddler from daycare.

The deadlines of Daddyland.   As frustrated as I might get, I am going to watch the sun melt the snow outside our window now.

And that is not bad.

i got nerves of steel at naptime

To build on my last post about the heroics of parenting …

Scene 1 – A man lies on a bed next to a sleeping baby.  A sick toddler home from daycare sleeps on the couch in the next room.  All is well.  But then, for some reason, the man decides to get up to check on the toddler.

The baby wakes.  Screams.  The toddler wakes.  Screams.  The man dissolves in a flood of tears.

Scene 2 – The next day.  A baby sleeps on a bed.  A toddler is happily playing.  A man – randomly obsessed with finding a flashlight – moves the couch.  It hits the toddler’s foot.  Screams.  The baby wakes.  Screams.

Cut to a montage of nightmarish horror – wandering thed snowy night in despair, a random beating, drug abuse, Russian roulette.

Scene 3  - The next day.  Are our hero’s nerves shot?  Can he survive yet another blow?  Cut to multiple screens.  With a “24″-style clock.

A baby sleeps on a bed.  A toddler watches Dora the Explorer.  The baby wakes and screams.  The man runs in and starts rocking the baby back to sleep.  At the same time, he can hear the Dora episode winding down.  Dora has brought the moon to the queen and king, becoming a true princess.  The toddler will yell when it ends.  The baby’s eyes flutter.  Can the man get the baby to sleep in time?  Can he keep calm doing it?  Can he resist from trying to communicating with the toddler?

Yes!  The baby is tucked under a blanket just as Dora winds up.

But what will the toddler’s mood be?  Cranky?  Loud?

The man gets the toddler to sleep … just before the baby wakes up again.

The baby goes back to sleep again.

Then the toddler coughs herself awake.  The man comforts her.  They play.  Happy.

The baby wakes up.

Happy.

Jack Bauer has got nothing on our hero.

home with baby – the first days

Yesterday was the true Day One of my parental leave, the first day that NK went to daycare and that E headed off to study. Yep, just me and my boy and the same burning, panicky question I had the first day of my previous parental leave: How the hell will I get this kid to sleep?

Now, I put Baby B to sleep all the time, but it has gotten harder and harder, both to accomplish and on my back (I still have to “shush” him).

So there we were, both still jet lagged, and me expecting to get out a bit. But the boy wasn’t having it, grumpy and crying. So I tried to put him to sleep, and it has never gone so wrong.

About 15 minutes later, I am standing there watching him roll on the floor in absolute despair thinking that I totally misread that situation. Great job on the first day. That type of thing. I tried to dress him, feed him, play with him. Nothing. I got the stroller ready. Nothing.

So I tried to put him to sleep again. Took 15 seconds.

Sigh.

The rest of the day was short, actually. Baby B and I went to the mall and shopped and played at the library. E came home to be with him so I picked NK up from daycare on my own. Then we all did the family thing for the whole afternoon, which we have done for weeks, months, years at this point (so we decided to take more alone space, even within the apartment. I broke out and immediately went and sewed three buttons on my winter coat. It was crazy.)

Then today, I vowed to stay home and see if the baby crashed. He did not. Hours and hours passed and he was awake and happy. We played put the top back on the baby food jar for at least an hour (strangely, it lost its appeal for me after 45 minutes).

Finally he slept late and now I am stuck inside hopping back and forth from computer to baby, since he does not sleep for more than 40 minutes on his own.

Off to nap besides him.