Who needs sleep?

When my wife and I tell people we have a 10-month-old son and 46-month-old daughter, the first reaction we get is confusion as people convert in their heads 46 months into years. The second reaction is a question that haunts all parents:

"How are they sleeping?"

The answer inevitably requires a paragraph where the questioner might have been expecting to hear a number. For me, the question also causes a bit of embarrassment, especially if the questioner also is a parent, because both of our kids, since early ages, were never up every two hours. Both, in fact, were sleeping through the night by the time they were three months.

If I'm talking to an up-every-two-hour parent, the conversation dynamic dramatically changes; it's as if I told the other person we have the same job but I make twice as much. I immediately try to soften the blow.

"It gets better," I'll say. "We got lucky."

I'm a believer that you can't judge others' parenting skills because you never know the full picture. (I try to remind myself of this as I'm judging others' parenting skills.) But I sincerely try to withhold all judgment when it comes to children and sleep. Because just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there is no wrong answer when it's 2 a.m. and your kid won't fall asleep.

(Note: What follows is my best recollection of various things related to my kids' sleeping. I was only half-awake when a lot of this happened, after all.)

We put both of our newborns in the cribs in their rooms almost as soon as we got home from the hospital. While our daughter quickly took to it, our son never quite seemed comfortable. But then early one morning, I took him out of his crib and lay with him on the floor for tummy time and noticed how calm he was and then how he was falling asleep.

("STOP RIGHT THERE!!" I hear some of you parents saying, knowing where this is going. "You might as well wrap the kid in crib bumpers if you let him sleep on his stomach!")

We quickly realized he would go down easier and sleep longer when he was on his stomach. So we got one of those crib monitors that tracks his breathing and we never looked back (ha!). Sure, he's got the rounded head of a baby twice his age, and the mobile we got for his crib is kind of a waste. But we're rarely up in the middle of the night anymore.

Unless our daughter comes into mom and dad's room, that is.

("STOP RIGHT THERE!!" I hear some of you parents saying, knowing where this is going. "Are you going to like it when she's 18 and crawling into your bed?")

For two years, our bed was the only one she would sleep in -- she decided a sleeping mat on her bedroom floor was more comfortable then her bed. My wife was concerned she would have back issues. I was more concerned with my own back issues because I would lay on the floor with her until she fell asleep.

There were nights I would spend almost an hour on the floor with her. My patience would be rewarded a few hours later, when she came into our room and wanted to come in our bed. We've co-slept with her in hotels and on vacation out of convenience and, in some ways, the earlier in the night she came into our bedroom, the more uninterrupted sleep we would get.

Her bed issues began in our old house, and we figured we could change her sleeping habits when we moved into our new house. We painted her new room pink, got her a mattress fit for a princess and covered it in unicorn sheets. We made everyone in the family talk up her new Big Girl Bed and put one of those guardrails on the side.

And that first night in the new house she excitedly climbed into her new bed and quickly fell asleep after I gave her a kiss goodnight. Just kidding! She refused to sleep in her bed for another year. Until one night, when I told her daddy could no longer sleep on the floor and I gave her two options: I'll sit in a chair while you are on the floor or I will lay in bed with you until you fall asleep.

I nearly passed out when she agreed to go to her bed. Today, I still need to lay with her but only for a few minutes most nights, and she loves her bed.

Years from now, we'll probably look back fondly on all of this. (My parents still remind me that I slept on the floor with my head in the hallway when I was a toddler.) Today, though, we take sleep one night at a time.

Or one morning at a time. As I write this, it's 6:30 a.m. and our son, who just nursed and should be asleep for at least the next 90 minutes, is wailing.

I just hope he doesn't wake up our daughter while she sleeps in our bed.