After almost 8 months of sleepless nights and days with nearly no breaks at all, it's time to just bite the bullet. I need to teach this kid to sleep. So why blog about it? Because I think (hope) that if I write it all down, and make an effort to do so each day, maybe it will hold me accountable and help me keep at it. Knowing other people may be reading about it will help me keep going. Or, that's the idea anyhow...
A little background: Nolan will be 8 months old on November 22nd and other than the odd surprise nap or 6 hour stretch of night sleep, he has never been a good sleeper. I don't know why, but he has never responded well when I've tried to get him sleeping well. We did the "Cry it Out" method at 4 months old and because before that point, he would need to be bounced on the yoga ball to fall asleep and it would take for.ev.er to get him there. He would sleep exclusively in the swing and even that was beginning not to work anymore. So, CIO we did, and after a couple weeks, I could nurse him and put him in his crib without him crying and carrying on. So, getting him to bed became a lot easier, but he still woke up every 2-3 hours through the night.
After reading 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child' cover to cover several times, I have followed the methods to a 'T'. I've tried CIO for naps on several different occasions, giving it a good 2 weeks to get him to figure it out, and not once has it ever worked. Maybe Dr. Weissbluth's version of CIO for naps just doesn't work for this little dude. I've recently re-read 'Sleep Sense' which also uses a form of CIO, but the delivery is a little different. I'm going to try going with her method this time around.
So, here we are. Day 1.
Sleep Sense heavily suggests that you keep your baby in his crib for all naps during the training period so that they have a chance to figure out and realize that crib=sleep. It makes perfect sense to me and in a perfect world, that's what I would do, but I have two other kids who need to be dropped off and picked up from school and, as Murphy's Law states, prime nap times fall exactly during those drop offs and pick ups. So, I was going to wait to do this sleep training thing until Christmas break because the kids are off school for 2 weeks (TWO WEEKS?! WTF is that about?) this year and I wouldn't have to run around during nap times. But, after one more night of being up every 2 hours last night, I woke up this morning determined to just do the best I can and get things rolling TODAY. The lack of sleep and perma-grumpy baby around here is weighing on me heavily and I can't take it one more day, much less one more month until Break starts.
So, this morning I loaded up all three kids and dropped Mason off at school. Then we drove and drove to kill time (and try to get Nolan to nap - no dice) and then dropped Jaime at preschool. Nolan and I came straight home, nursed in the glider and I put him in his crib awake at 9:33am. It's now 9:59am and he's been crying the entire time. It kills me to hear him cry. Seriously grates on my nerves and makes me doubt myself every.single.time. We've got to power through this time though! This HAS to work. He HAS to learn that sleep and naps are a really good thing.
Sleep Sense (which will forever after be referred to as "SS" because I'm tired of typing it out already) allows for you to go in and check on your baby as often as you think he needs it. I haven't gone in yet because I think that my presence will just piss him off and make him cry harder. I don't think I'll tempt that fate today, if at all. SS also dictates that you give your baby 70 minutes to fuss and sort themselves out to see if they fall asleep on their own. If not, you go in and comfort them, change them and play for 20-30 minutes and then stick them back in that crib for another try at a nap. If, after another 70 minutes, they still don't give in, you then have a "nap emergency". In which case, you take them for a walk in the stroller or a drive in the car to get them to at least get *some* sleep before the next nap time.
[10:04am -- holy shit, he's quiet in there! 31 minutes of crying and then quiet... hmmm]
Anyway -- I didn't mean for this first post to be so long winded, but I had to get that background in there and explain the "plan". Next time, I'll try to keep it shorter!
[Edit:
9:33am - in crib
10:04 - asleep
10:31 - awake, crying
10:41 - went in to comfort
10:43 - in crib, crying]
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