Austin and I tried everything to get him to sleep better, including co-sleeping, making the room darker, colder, warmer, soothers, less blankets, more blankets, different bedtime routines. Nothing worked. Sleep deprivation crept in and "forcing" Carson to sleep and nap started to consume me.
The one thing I didn't try and was afraid of doing, was letting him cry it out. I was doing the attachment parenting thing and believed that if I let him cry he would hate me and not trust me anymore. I didn't want to ruin the relationship I had built with him. I also didn't want him to have a negative experience in his crib and associate his crib with feeling abandoned.
Now that I've educated myself on sleep (which I should have been doing before Carson was born instead of worrying about contractions), we have been successful in establishing naps and an appropriate bedtime.
Here is the before and now:
Before
- Naps were basically non-existent. I assumed that 8 hours of sleep at night was enough and if he needed naps he would take them. He did in the form of "cat naps" for maybe 30 minutes in his swing, car seat,on my boobs or in his stroller. That counted as a nap to me at the time. Wrong.
- Bedtime was after being nursed to sleep for sometimes 90 minutes (ridiculous!) and then sometimes he would still wake up when we tried to put him in his grobag or swaddle him.Then he needed to be walked or rocked to sleep and this was at 10pm to stop the screaming. I had even resorted to using my wrap and walking around the neighbourhood for an hour. It worked, but getting him off me woke him up. It was a never-ending vicious cycle of exhaustion and frustration.
- Any time he woke up during the night or made a noise, I went right to him and nursed.
- He has 2-3 naps a day which are anywhere from 45-60minutes in the morning and 60-120 minutes in the afternoons. All naps are in his crib. A big difference from before. It was hard to establish this at first. It took a lot of perseverance.
- We have a very regular nap routine as well. I read him books, put him in his crib, turn on the sound machine (ocean waves) and leave the room when he is still awake. Another huge adjustment from before that took a long time to finally work.
- He falls asleep on his own 85% of the time. Learning to stop rocking him was hard. It was very difficult to hear Carson cry and cry in his crib and not go to him. It made me cry. It was the hardest thing I've had to do so far as a parent that was for his own good. Rocking/nursing him to sleep was taking away his independence and now he has figured out how to fall asleep on his own.
- Now when he makes fussing noises and I know he's ok, I give him the opportunity to fall back to sleep on his own at night time. I only nurse him about every 6 hours at night.
I have to thank Tif for giving me a little nudge to change what I was doing. It's not that what I was doing was wrong, but it obviously wasn't working and I needed to do something different to change the situation. I just felt awful letting him cry. I had to distract myself and turn music on, clean baseboards, do dishes, anything but sit by his door and wait. The minutes seemed like hours when all I wanted to do was go in and rock my baby to sleep. I did give in and still do once in a while, this only slows down the progress, but it was the only way I could get through it.
My Mom told me that I was like Carson when I was a baby. I knew this long before I was expecting Carson and thought my parents were so mean for letting me cry it out. Back in the 80's that's what their doctor told them to do. Now I feel like a hypocrite for using the method myself. There were ways to avoid the cry it out method if I had been more educated on sleep before Carson was born. I blame myself for the way his sleep habits changed. I should have done a lot of things differently. I've learned so much.
Once again, my Mom was right! I'm sure she's loving this! Instead of learning the hard way all the time, maybe I just need to listen to her. I just wanted to do things my own way. She kept herself from getting involved and didn't actually tell me what I was doing was wrong or to change anything. I'm sure if she did I wouldn't have listened anyway. Both my parents have been supportive but respectful about the way we do things in our home.
Here are two of the books that I've read. I would suggest to pick one and stick to that method. The two books contradict each other a bit.
The No-Cry Sleep Solution
Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child
There is so much more to say about sleep. We are still in the middle of this crazy journey and making progress day by day.
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