The Trixie Update

As most readers know, The Trixie Update isn’t as prolific as it used to be. This time last year we were a spry, young blog with lots of energy and boundless enthusiasm. Here we are a year later, which is about 29 years in internet time, and blogsteoporosis has set in. It’s hard to remember how we got here.

When Trixie was a few weeks old, we posted a few pictures, and a couple of stories about the miseries of sleep deprivation. At three months we had Telemetry up and running, and stories started rolling off the assembly line. At six months, we had collected so much data, the stories were writing themselves. That was our golden age.

By 12 months, having blown through a year of milk, we turned off Bottle Telemetry. By 18 months, Diaper Telemetry was discontinued. Here at 2 years all we have left is Sleep. It’s going to shut down some day too, but not yet. And until it does, we will dutifully present the data we have collected on the ever improving sleep habits of a 2-year human child.

The chart on the left right details 4,388 points of sleep data collected over the last 616 days. I wish I had data for the first few months, because that’s where the real painful stuff happened, but when it comes to raising children you just have to do the best you can and hope they turn out all right.

Sleep data is not enough to keep The Trixie Update running forever. But that’s where TPOD’s come in. I’m also still hoping to post more once Trixie Tracker launches. Thanks for sticking with us for almost two years!

Update: Want to create sleep charts for your baby or toddler?

Now you can! Give Trixie Tracker a try and discover your own amazing sleep patterns.

Some of the house favorites from the last 2 years:

The Cheerio Syndrome

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What do you think about…

Mealtime Atlas (images)

We’re all Mammals (images)

Still Mammals

Teeth (images)

Clik. clik. clik-click… clik

Paper Shredder (images)

And you thought metric was hard

Beware Toddlers Bearing Gifts

Two Nap Minimum (images)

Want more charts? Visit Metrics.

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We’re ready to cry. It doesn’t surprise me how quickly a good sleep schedule can unravel into a hellish limbo of uncertainty. We’ve been through it more than a few times. The thing that does amaze me is how quickly Trixie’s schedule takes a toll on our mental state. And for once I don’t mean the effects of sleep deprivation — I mean our expectation of what’s normal, of what we can place out trust in. That has now been shattered.

On the whole it hasn’t been a great sleep week. Trixie either has allergies or maybe a mild cold and it seems to have affected her sleep. Everything came to a head yesterday morning:

Wakes up: 6:10 am. (too damn early)
My thoughts: Well, at least she’ll take a good nap.

Afternoon nap: 1 hour 23 minutes (too short by 40-60 minutes)
My thoughts: Well, at least she’ll go to bed early.

Won’t go to sleep until: 10:10 pm (the latest she has ever stayed up. Also the longest she has ever been awake for one day: 14 hours, 36 minutes)
My thoughts: Well, at least she’ll sleep-in in the morning.

Wakes up: 5:51 am (the shortest overnight sleep in more than a year: 7 hours, 41 minutes)
My thoughts: I’m going to sell her.

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It’s my guess that if you ask any parent of a young toddler what the best time of the day is, the answer will be nap time. Previously it may have been happy hour, or when Must-See-TV starts, or that second coffee break, but that was before they had kids.

Four months ago, when Trixie was 14 months old, I could usually count on her to take a nap by about 10am, but I wasn’t real particular. If she acted tired, I would let her take a nap, even if it was 8 o’clock in the morning. As far as I was concerned, it was never too early for a nap. Not being a morning person, I needed Trixie’s first nap to shower, get dressed, and generally wake-up. If I was having a good day, I might even get a little work done, but that was usually left for the afternoon nap. She didn’t always take an afternoon nap, but it regular enough for me to believe that it existed. (See A)

Things began to change around 15 1/2 months (B). I still let Trixie go to sleep in the morning when she wanted to, but it became increasingly difficult to get her to take a second nap. We had horrible days where she took a short morning nap, and then spent the whole afternoon in a cranky, frustrated stupor, unwilling or unable to take a second one.

We wrestled with this for a month until we decided enough was enough. We decided to push her to stay up until nap time (1:00) and the payoff was immediate. (C) The following nine days were the most consistent sleep schedule Trixie ever had. Her schedule has fluctuated since then, but one the one-nap-a-day rule remains in effect.

So, now our only sleep problem is trying to get Trixie to stay in bed at bedtime. For instance, tonight it took over an hour of her jumping out of bed, running around her room in the dark, pulling out all her toys, banging into things and generally sounding like a raccoon going through the trash before we finally got her to sleep. Aside from reverting to the Pack’n'Play (which she still can’t climb out of) we don’t have a solution — unless going in there with a flashlight and banging on the garbage can lids would work.

Want to learn more about your child’s sleep patterns? Start today with Trixie Tracker sleep tracking software.

Other points of interest on this chart:
(D) First climbed out of her crib, just five days after we switched over to one nap a day.

(E) Christmas.

(F) After several weeks of successfully sleeping without the crib side, Trixie began rolling out of bed at night.

(G) Trixie was sick.

(H) Trixie wouldn’t stay in her crib when she was sick, so we switched her back to the Pack’n'Play for about a week and a half until she learned to stay in the crib again.

Thanks to dearsarah for reminding me to do this nap transition story

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Who was optimistic? Not many of you. Only about 8% of you thought you can teach an old toddler new tricks. But to our knowledge, Trixie didn’t fall out of bed at all last night. (Unfortunately, she also tried to wake up a little too early around 6:30.)

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The overwhelming majority of you either thought there were no problems (19%) or it was a complete failure and she slept on the floor the whole night (50%). The correct answer lies somewhere in between. Jenn had to go help Trixie two times last night. The first time, around 1am, Trixie was lying on the floor (right next to the bed — presumably where she fell) pitifully crying and whimpering. She went back to sleep the second Jenn put her in bed. The second time, around 3am, Trixie was bawling at the gate. It took a little more work to get her down (so I am told) but Jenn succeeded.

Earlier today Trixie took her nap without falling off the bed, but it took me 90 minutes to get her to go to sleep. It was a nightmare, and makes me want to take up cat herding.

Now we’re getting ready to see if Trixie has learned anything since last night. Anyone want to take a guess? We’re resetting the poll. Place your bets for tonight’s [Monday night] record. I’ll post the answer first thing Tuesday morning. Well… maybe after coffee.

[Editor’s note] This poll is now closed.

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As reported below, we removed the crib side rail yesterday. How many times do you think Trixie fell out of the bed last night? Vote now, see the answer tonight after Trixie goes to sleep. (Poll is to your left under Latest TTU Comments.)

[Editor’s note] This poll is now closed.

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Keeping the crib side rail in the lowered position lasted only one day. It got too dangerous because a sleepy, wobbly Trixie was still inclined to stand up and grab for the railing, even though it no longer came up to her chest-level. Instead it cut her off at the knees, acting like a well-designed tripwire. To keep Trixie from catapulting herself onto the floor every time she stood up, we had to take the side completely off. She’s free.

Since we can no longer secure her in the “toddler bed”, we had to fall back to the next defensible position. We bought a door gate last night and have cordoned off her room. This line must hold. It also means that we have conceded that territory. She could spend hours exploring in there in the middle of night (if done quietly) and we’d never know. So, we finally had to baby-proof the room.

Now, I’ve told Jenn for 17 months that I would baby-proof the house, but I never really intended to because it just seemed like a lot of work. I’ve opted instead to actually watch the kid and intervene only when she tries to pry open the bleach with a kitchen knife. However, now that Trixie really, really has her own room, we went through and plugged the outlets, secured the electrical cords, installed toilet seat clamps on everything. You know, the works.

Tonight is her first night sleeping in there. Getting her to go to bed took a little extra work, but after hanging on the gate and howling for fifteen minutes she eventually wandered back over to the bed and crawled in. I was thankful when she finally fell asleep. It’s a little disconcerting to have her creeping around the room in the dark, knocking things over and running into stuff. It sounds too much like something is loose in there, just waiting for the rest of us to go asleep.

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She climbed out of the crib again while I was in the shower. Thankfully Jenn was home. We then caught a glimpse of how she was doing it. It looked like a cross between the men’s rings competition and a wounded gazelle trying to escape a lion.

We’re now keeping the side lowered so she can easily get in and out at will. We don’t want to take the side off entirely because Trixie rolls around like crazy in her sleep — imagine a sack of potatoes in the back of a pickup truck. We’re not sure what we’re going to do next.

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I was in the kitchen this morning, with Trixie in her crib, when I heard a huge thump-a-thunk. I promptly ignored it because how much trouble can she get into when she’s in the crib?

Not expecting anyone or anything else to be moving around the house, I almost screamed bloody murder when 10 seconds later Trixie came shuffling around the corner. This is a bad milestone, Trixie can get out of her crib.

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Did you choose D? If so, Congratulations! You weren’t seduced by the siren song of A, B and C — all of which were designed to fool you into thinking that there’s hope and a hidden order when it comes to a toddler’s sleep habits. (This is the answer to the Trixie Update Sleep Challenge. Go see how you would have guessed.)

I was shocked when I first rendered this chart. It didn’t look anything like I expected, which is why I decided to turn it into a challenge. I was surprised because Jenn and I both thought Trixie was on a pretty good schedule. I imagined that one year of data would show clear improvement as the erratic chaos of a 4-month-old gave way to the regular overnight sleep habits of a 16-month-old. Instead, this chart shows that even though she’s sleeping through the night, her actual overnight sleep-time and nap schedule during the day isn’t stable. There’s been a small shift in the amount of awake-time per day, which is supposed to happen as your child grows, but the signal is buried in a lot of noise.

Basically, this chart shows that no matter how hard we try, it’s difficult to get Trixie on a regular, predictable schedule. We have routines — dinner, bath, reading, lights out. We put her to bed at the same time almost every night (even though she doesn’t always fall asleep at the time.) But we just can’t control what time she wakes up in the morning. And when she inexplicably wakes up at 5:30am it throws off her schedule for the rest of the day. For example, do you try to keep a cranky Trixie awake until her regular nap time? Or do you just let her go to sleep once she lays down on the floor at 9am and starts sucking her thumb? It’s a tough call. And all these little variations add up to create massive sleep cycle swings over the course of several days.

Does this chart mean that it’s hopeless to get your toddler on a good schedule? No. There are small trends over the past year, and some of the more severe spikes do correspond to specific provoking events (like a road trip or being sick). But it basically means that there’s not a clean evolution.

If you didn’t choose the right answer to the challenge, take heart. About 75% of us expected to find a more predictable, ordered chart. Or maybe about 75% of us are just hoping to get a little more sleep.

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