Sleep and Teddy = Oil and Water part III

You can read part I here and part II here.

I went through all the books again, talked about it at length with Thomas and my doctor, and we decided we would try to let him cry for short periods of time and see where it took us. The first night was awful. He shrieked like a banshee and I was pretty sure if it was possible to destroy a mother child bond in a night I had just done it. We checked on him every five to ten minutes and after about an hour he was out. However he woke up again quite often that night and although he did sleep some longer stretches I still wasn’t sure if this was the right path for us. We had decided to give it 5 days so we plowed ahead.

Each day got better and the change happened so fast. We never had another night like the first. We also were able to customize our plan to suit our son. Both my husband and I came up with soothing strategies that only took a minute or two but calmed him right down. We also started doing checks more often, every 3-5 minutes if he sounded angry. We found that by doing this he never really got too angry and often was asleep within fifteen minutes. I still nursed him on demand up until 10pm and then would just soothe him if he had nursed within the past 3 hours.

Now a few weeks later we almost never have any crying whatsoever. We do our bedtime ritual and put him in his bed. He grabs at his blanket looks around and within five minutes he is asleep. He only wakes when he is hungry and would like to eat. Although recently I do think a bit of teething got in the way but that still just led to two extra wakings in which we snuggled him nice and tight for a minute put him back down and then he was out.

He has now managed a 10 hour stretch (although I am perfectly happy with a 3-5 hour stretch- I let him lead the way, if he wakes, he gets fed/comforted, and if not, well then I enjoy the extra winks) and he is so well rested. The best part is how much happier he is. Most mornings I get a cooing little guy from his crib and then get to enjoy a smiley happy baby with energy until he goes down for bed at 6 or 7. I love it. I love how much this has made a difference in all of our lives.

I know that in those first hard days I did not ruin our bond or teach him not to trust me or call out for me. I know he just needed that little push to figure out how to fall back asleep without any help. It was like he had been begging me all that time to just help him get some more sleep and now that he was finally able to, all was right with the world.

I also know that this path isn’t right for everyone or every baby and I do wish that we had never even had to consider it. But I don’t regret or feel ashamed for one minute that we took this route. It was the right one for us and I truly believe that it was one which involved much less tears then if we had continued on as we did.

In my circles here in “the real world” this is something that almost no one talks about and I wanted to share my experience. I hope I haven’t alienated some of the mummies too much who I know took a very different path.

Sleep and Teddy = oil and water? part II

You can read part I here.

When you look at a sleeping baby there is pretty much no way not to go all gooey inside and get a big goofy grin on your face.

When you look at a baby screaming in your face who you have spent the last three hours bouncing on a ball and singing and talking to, it is pretty impossible to feel nice feelings at all.

I used to get so incredibly angry at this little person in our lives. I was doing everything in my human power to appease him and it still wasn’t enough. Didn’t he know how hard I was trying, what did he want from me? I get tears just thinking about it now because it was so so hard. I don’t think words can express how helpless I felt and how hard every day was to just barely eke through. We were surviving. That is it. Survival.

I read books, we met with our pediatrician multiple times, we even went to a sleep therapist. We were doing everything “right”. Trying to limit wake times, lots of fresh air in the sling, nice relaxing massages and baths, he slept in my arms, and still he would spend the better part of every night crying hysterically. Nursing no longer appeased him so I would sit in the dark in the living room and walk and bounce until eventually exhaustion would set in and he would sleep for at least an hour or two. I wasn’t asking for much, maybe just three hour stretches and a baby who would fall asleep in less than an hour and not cry all the time.

I had heard about cry it out and knew all the different opinions. Babies need attachment and their needs to be responded to, babies need closeness, babies can’t be spoiled- and I believed and still do, all of it.

At about 16 weeks Theodor reached a point where he started to kick me and scream every hour, this was a low point even for us and I decided that nothing could be worse then what we were doing.

So we took a big step and never looked back...

More coming in part III of Sleep and Teddy = oil and water?

Sleep and Teddy = oil and water?

Sleep is such a huge issue when it comes to parenting. I honestly, and naively never really thought about it before Theodor graced the world with his presence. Then I spent about 3 1/2 months thinking about nothing else, because surprise surprise, I wasn't getting any.

Now I still think about sleep but normally these thoughts are accompanied by feelings of pride, happiness, and enjoyment that can only occur when getting chunks of sleep that are longer then an hour or two.

I love that my son actually has a bedtime and nap times now. Sure they are flexible based on how much sleep he has gotten so far in the day but before these were terms which just had no place in our lives.
Every day was a big fat question mark that quite honestly filled me with fear.
Would he sleep at all? How long would it take him to fall asleep at night? Would he cry for hours in my arms? Would he be happy when he was awake or miserable? Would I be able to get him to sleep even an hour not in my arms? Would he ever sleep more then an hour or two?
Would I make it through the day???

I now wake up every morning more or less refreshed and these questions don't even go through my head. Everything is so much better in ways I didn't even let myself imagine before because I just never ever thought we would get to this place.

Next Post: How I got to this place.