Disproving Dr. Weiss@ss

I put that @ sign in there just to be nice. I don't really think he deserves it at this point.

You probably know who I mean - Dr. Weissbluth, MD, author of the famous "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" book that everyone drools over. Even our pediatrician told us to read this book the most recent time that I called her begging her to do something, anything, about how my child refuses to sleep (I call them about once a week asking this).

First of all, Dr. W is a fan of Cry It Out, which neither of us feel good about, no matter how hard we try. I'm not condemning anyone who is OK with it - I wish we could be, but we have tried and we just can't. Also, our child has never heard of it and he does not abide by it.

That is one of the first of the "facts about sleep" presented by Dr. Wiess@ss that Little Sir has completely disproven. I am so sleep deprived right now that I am getting angry at the doctor for even writing them down and giving me these false hopes. So here they are, a list of "sleep facts" that Little Sir has disproven:

• Longer naps in the day time provides longer sleep at night. Yesterday (Monday) Little Sir took one of the longest naps of his life (excluding the first 2 days after he was born), which was 2.2 hours long. He then proceeded to wake up loudly every 1-2 hours all night long last night. He had done it the night before that as well, only that time he had some stretches of 3 hours or so. Oooo.
• When a child learns to self-soothe to sleep, he will sleep through the night. We have never really had an issue with Little Sir falling asleep. From the very first time we put him alone in his crib, he just smiled up at us and fell right asleep. Nowadays he is more likely to talk to himself for 30 minutes or so, but he rarely actually cries when put down to sleep. It's the waking every 2-3-4 hours when the crying happens. According to the logic of the sleep books, if he can put himself to sleep he "should" be able to stay asleep. I wish!
• A nap of less than one hour is not even real sleep. If this is true, Little Sir has probably only napped for real about 16 times since his birth (excluding the first 2 days after he was born).
• Being sleep deprived creates a grumpy baby.  Considering that, according to Dr. W, Little Sir has almost never had a real nap in his life and has never slept through the night, it seems odd that he is very cheerful and people tell us all the time what a happy baby he is. After a long night of not sleeping or a nap of 10 minutes (not a "real" nap, apparently), Little Sir always looks up at me and smiles like, "Well that was fun". I'm not saying he isn't twitchy and overly excitable from being overtired. I am just saying he's not grumpy about it.

Another thing that sucks is how all these sleep books I have read spend more than 50% of their pages going on and on about how horrible sleep deprivation is, how your child is going to grow up not being able to learn or reach milestones, and what a terrible parent you are if you don't let your child get enough sleep. This just makes me feel crappy. Like I am sitting around making my child stay awake. For the love of God, if I wanted him to stay awake like this all the time, why would I read all these completely unhelpful sleep books?? And who wants to get up constantly all night, every night anyway? Not me.

That is all for now on the sleep books. I have decided they are just making me paranoid.