Published: November 21, 2008 09:56 am         

DOUBLE TROUBLE: The battle of the bedtime

In this corner: Mom. The Food Source. She who is known as Changer of Diapers and Wiper of Noses. The Enforcer of Rules and the Fixer of Toys.

In this corner: Sam. The Two-Foot Terror. Scourge of Bottles and Would-Be Chaser of Brothers. The Ultimate Ruler of the World — or at least Grandma’s House.

The scene: Cage match (translate: the crib).

At stake: Sleep for everyone. Especially Mom, who’s gotten a solid six hours sleep overnight precisely once since Sam’s birth in June.

Battle on.

•••

I, of course, am Mom.

Jim, my 4-year-old, slept through the night when he was a month old. I was spoiled. Optimistically, I figured Little Keppeler No. 2 would do the same.

Nope.

Sam is perfectly fine with snoozing in the evening. He may even be fine for a few hours after I put him in his crib. But no matter what, at some point during the night, there will come a furious summons from the nursery ...

“Waaaaaaahhhhhhh!”

He’s starving — having only eaten an hour ago. Or he’s wet. Or he’s rolled into the side of his crib and woken himself up.

Or he’s angry because the Bills lost another one. Who knows?

A month ago, things were getting better. He was walking up about once a night, snacking for a few minutes and then drifting off back to sleep. That, I could handle. Then the stomach bug hit our house, sleep schedules got thrown out the window and things just haven’t been the same.

The bug is long gone. Sam is still howling every few hours. I decided it was time for a little online research.

A Google search for baby sleep tips pulled up a ton of entries. Obviously, we’re not alone in sleep deprivation. Some of them seemed a bit overly optimistic, though.

A baby who’s 4 months old should certainly be capable of sleeping through the night, the baby-info Web sites assured me. In fact, a baby of that age should sleep 14 to 15 hours a day — 10 to 12 of those at night.

Are you kidding me?

I looked down at Sam, who was watching with interest from his baby seat on the floor.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.,” I told him. “Plus a few naps a day. Really. You’re not getting nearly enough sleep now. You should be exhausted.”

Wide blue eyes. Then a toothless smile and gurgle. I think he looked smug.

After all, he’s the one who gets the most sleep in this household right now. What’s not to like?

The Web sites offered many ideas to get babies to sleep through the night, few of them practical.

Letting him cry himself out isn’t going to happen because, one, I couldn’t take it, and two, he’d almost certainly wake up his big brother. One thing we don’t need is to compound the problem with a cranky 4-year-old.

Swaddling worked — helped, anyway — when he was a newborn. Now he’s a sprawling sleeper and just gets annoyed with it.

Filling him up didn’t work. Even if he chugged a full bottle right before bedtime, Sam-the-Bottomless-Pit is always willing to eat more. And it darned well better be coming when he demands it.

We tried a CD with the sound of ocean waves — after all, he slept well when we visited the beach when he was only a month old.

And he seems to like it. He just doesn’t sleep through it.

Do you have tips to get an active baby to sleep through the night? Did something odd work for you? Let me know.

My sanity may depend on it.

Jill Keppeler is a page designer for Greater Niagara Newspapers. She can be reached at keppelerj@gnnewspaper.com.