Sleep, Sleep! Glorious Sleep!

(written Aug. 2015)

Let's talk sleep-- this is more a documentation for me to remember, as well as, a possible aid to others out there with sleep resistant kidlets. When Truman first arrived I was under the assumption that all babies went to sleep when they were tired. I had read some books and I was completely down for the whole feed, wake, sleep cycle. I just thought the baby would do the sleep thing without much help. For the most part Truman did. But then we would hit the evening hours-dinner and the distraction of Dave coming home from work would completely leave me not thinking about Truman needing to sleep. We had a cranky babe during that time. I really thought if he was tired he would put himself to sleep. Nope. This kid could stay awake even as a newborn for long stretches (I remember commenting about this at his 10 day old appointment and the Dr. replied, "So you got a kid that doesn't sleep 21 hours a day?) I assumed he wasn't tired. I was wrong, Very wrong. He would get so over tired by 7:30/8pm that he would be screaming like a banshee-- I am NOT exaggerating. He already has the most blood curdling, head turning, strangers come up to me in stores to make sure he is not suffering from so sort of mortal danger normal cry that his banshee cry was just plain that, banshee like! My sister in-law said to me once after he turned into a little baby banshee at their house that sleep begets sleep. That's when it hit me. I needed to help and teach Truman to sleep. It's sad that Truman was like a month old before I realized this. Anyway, once I figured that out his daytime sleep was better. 

Then, at 3 1/2 months we were realizing that our "helping" him to sleep was taking WAY too long. Dave or I would be in his room at night for an hour to rock him to sleep only to have him wake about 20 minutes after being put in his crib followed by another 20-40 minutes of rocking. Dave and I weren't getting time together and it was ridiculous that we were such slaves to bedtime. That's when I decided to do the cry it out method/progressive waiting method. After googling a bit, I stumbled across this website, the author gives a great summary of Ferber's method to follow. Then, I checked out the book, "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems," by Dr. Richard Ferber (that is what the author of the website I linked was using). This method may not work for everyone but it works for us.

We started Ferber's method when Truman was 3 1/2 months, he was stubborn! He cried for almost a week for at least 2 hours at night but then it became less. After less than a month we were able to just place him in his crib awake, he would roll over and go to sleep on his own. It was bliss!!! Very little waking at night, he usually woke when he was being visited by the awful teething monster.

THEN, we took his binky away at 18 months old. To say that he adored his binky is an understatement. When he woke from sleeping I would sometimes catch him just looking at his binky and stroking it. He was obsessed. We took it away, it took about a week before he would go to sleep without crying. BUT because I was pregnant and felt guilty for taking his binky I started rocking and patting him to sleep at night. Dave or I would rock him until he was asleep then place him in his crib and pat his back until he was in a deep enough sleep for us to sneak/crawl out of his room. It was pathetic. I just couldn't bring myself to do the Ferber method again, I didn't think I could handle more than a week of crying for hours before he accepted his sleep fate, add the pregnancy hormones coursing through me and I was afraid I would cave during the process making it worse.

Well, after months and I mean months of the silly rocking/patting cycle we were back at the rocking for 30+ minutes and then patting for an additional 20+ minutes I concluded that we just couldn't continue like this. Truman was waking in the night a couple times a week every other week it seemed and he would need to be rocked back to sleep and sometimes it would be a couple hours before I could crawl out of his room and back into my bed. With the new babe coming I just couldn't see how this could go on. Dave and I were getting almost no time together in the evening for each other or ourselves. I also, didn't want to be forced to sleep train him after the baby came, I didn't want him to connect the sleep training process to the new baby in any way. So, after 6 months of rocking/patting, that's right! I waited 6 months to train him to sleep on his own again. We did the Ferber method again. This time though it only took him 3 days of crying at bedtime for an hour before he was only crying for 15 minutes. Now, he cries less than 3 minutes and is completely out. I don't know if he will ever stop crying. I believe when I read Dr. Ferber's book he commented that some kids just need to cry a little. 

We are back to sleeping bliss. Truman goes down at an earlier time than he did during those 6 months, now its 8:30 p.m. (versus between 9:30-10:30 p.m.), wakes up at the same time as when he went to bed later which is 8:30 a.m.. He is always happy when he wakes up. He also has about a 2 1/2 hour nap. It has been so wonderful. And he hasn't been waking in the middle of the night. Seriously, I need to remember this!