Diary of a Sleep Training Parent - Why write it?

Why I am blogging this experience...
I wasn't going to sleep train. No, seriously, I had read all the books...searched on-line...talked to other parents. I had heard all the theories and ways of doing it. It wasn't for me. It wasn't for us. At least, not for the first 8 months.


Hard Thing About Being A Parent #26- Admitting when what you are doing is not working and trying something else. 

It wasn't working. The philosophy I loved of giving Noah a positive sleep experience where he would enter sleep with no tears was failing me. My husband and I would do and had done anything Noah needed to help him sleep.
White noise, bouncing, swinging, walking, singing, shushing, swaddling, nursing, rocking, laying with him, even having him sleep in our bed with us. Waking up. and waking up again. again.
For many months it was a good routine and it was something we believed in and felt good about. However, for the last six weeks, the months on end of getting hardly 3 hours of sleep at one time was beginning to wear on all of us.
The sleep exhaustion was...well...exhausting. I mean that in every sense of the word. We had no energy. We had no reserves. Noah even seemed crankier and crankier as the weeks wore on of being up sometimes every 45 minutes throughout the night. The lack of sleep was affecting our home, our health, and our marriage. We had to admit that this wasn't working but I could not be convinced to do anything else we had read or heard about. An appointment with our pediatrician and a coinciding conversation on facebook lead us to The Sleepeasy Solution. This is a variation on Ferber's methods of basically "crying it out" with timed check-ins by the parents.

We read and watched a DVD. I was ready to try it. Not without tears of my own. Even thinking about making such a drastic change was upsetting to me. I felt like a failure and a small part of me still hung on to wanting to help Noah get through his nights even if it meant an extreme schedule of small amounts of sleep with no end in sight. I cried thinking about Noah not laying next to me in the bed or stroking my arm as he fell asleep. This was a hard decision for me. I didn't want to sleep train Noah and I could certainly find evidence to support my feelings BUT our life was being undone at the seams by the fatigue that started to define every moment of our days.

Learning The Sleepeasy Solution I began to feel like I could do this. How can so many people be wrong? We might as well try it. Give it a go. We watched and read and planned. and prayed.

I am writing these blogs as a diary. As a record. It will be honest. I hope you, Reader, will give me the grace to go through this journey with all the ups and downs I may express here. If we fail then maybe others can learn from our mistakes. If we succeed maybe it can encourage others. Maybe no one will ever read it and it is really just for me...to process and work through (as only writing can help one do). Either way it is a record of this Mama leaving one decision and trying to embrace another way of doing things. Because her husband needs her to. Because her home needs her to. Because she needs to know it is OK to let go of what you thought would work or of what was once working and give something else a fair and fighting chance.

(1st in a series) 

8 months old...

With 6 minutes left in the day...I finally sit to type about our little man.

At 8 months old Noah loves:
- all baby food (Grandpa P and a few Uncles even took a shot at it this month)
- pools! (just have to keep him from drinking the water)
- books (and he will cry when you stop reading if he wants you to read it again)
- live animals (dogs, cats, and he visited his great Uncle's chickens and rooster)
- being in new places/observing new things
- walks with Daddy (facing out in the baby carrier)

Changes:
- he squirms to get down on the ground and loves to face out when being held
- clicking his tongue (new sound!)
- he now gives little "high fives" if we encourage him with the sound "BAM"
- Noah is GREAT at sitting up!
- this month saw the first times Noah reached for me, refused to let a stranger hold him, and the beginning of a little separation crying
- Noah spent his first full day without Mommy...with Grandma Betsy...it went pretty well!

We are working on:
- waving
- not biting
- not pinching Mamas arm while eating
- crawling...lots of effort towards this....he is close and can "get around" but no true crawling yet...often ends up going backwards
- giving kisses
- sleeping

New friends:
-Jonah Clermont entered our lives and Noah got a real kick out of their first meeting. He smiled and laughed and we believe it will be a great friendship.

-Our Scottish cousin Owen and Noah met on the eve of Noah's 8 monthday. They reached for each other, stared a bit, and then went swimming together. Owen and his Mommy are here for 5 weeks...some real good bonding time.

Peek A Boo Forest

Noah's Book Club: June 2012

Title: Peek-a-Boo Forest
I love lift-the-flap books and Mommy loves things I can't rip!

Author: Joe Grasso 

Made by: Lamaze

Why Noah Picked It: I really like lift-the-flap books but Mom won't let me look at them independently because some times...I rip the flaps right off! She hides all the lift-the-flap books up high for when an adult can read to me....except this one! This book is made of cloth so I can play with it on my own! The book has some kind of something inside that makes the flaps crinkle when I touch them and the owl friend on the cover comes up off the page. As the title says it is filled with forest animals which I like because being a baby boy I have had my fill of monkeys and farmyard animals...come on baby marketing departments....get creative! I love peek-a-boo, I love lift-the-flaps, and I love a book I can throw around! Mom would like to add that this book is a huge seller on Amazon...so I am not the only one who enjoys the flap lifting genre! 

I Love You Through and Through

Noah's Book Club: May 2012

Title: I Love You Through and Through
A new classic.

Author: Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak

Illustrator: Caroline Jayne Church

Why Noah Picked It: My Mom read this a lot to me when I was younger. I really took an interest in it because of the little boy. I like how he shows the different emotions and parts of the body. I like how his bear helps him to show each action. The illustrations are simple and great for babies. If you are a girl baby they have a book that features one of your kind called "How Do I Love You?" but I think this book is good for all babies! 

Noah's Favorite Things: 7 months

(I stumbled upon a blog where a Mom listed her baby's favorite things each month. Clever! Instead of simply wishing I had thought of it myself...I will start now. Now is better than never.)

Noah's favorite things @ 7 months:
1.) wooden blocks (stacked into a tower by Mommy to push over or to use as a teether)
2.) Sophie the giraffe (a teether)
3.) Dino Popper with all the balls removed (becomes a teether)
4.) any form of peek-a-boo/where's Noah?/being surprised
5.) tags (on toys, pillows, clothing...anything really) and buttons
6.) drinking water from a glass
7.) walks with Mommy and Daddy especially if carried by Daddy
8.) Elephant (sleeping buddy)
9.) when Mommy lays down for naps with him
10.) "Baby Beluga" song/board book

Some of Noah's least favorite things:
1.) top two front teeth coming in
2.) any form of baby food in any flavor
3.) bottles (this is new)
4.) not being able to go where he wants
5.) being left alone
6.) teething tablets/baby Tylenol
7.)  being swaddled (JJ can still get him to accept at bedtime but other wise - no go)
8.) diaper changes- twists/turns/flips/screams
9.) car rides at night
10.) when Mommy takes rubber ducky away

Things we are looking forward to in month 7:
-first trip to the beach
-visit with Great-Grands
-Father's Day
-meeting future baby best friend
-learning to crawl or scoot?

6 months old tomorrow (posted a bit late)

(written on April 20th)

Noah is 6 months old tomorrow.

What???? How did that happen? It is true what they say...it goes fast. Let me be clear - There are hours and days that seem to drag on for eternity but when you are looking back at 6 months...it feels so unreal. I am sure this is compounded by the fact that I have spent a lot of the last 6 months in a sleep deprived state.  Noah has two teeth, rolls over from his back to his tummy, is 20 pounds, can sit (briefly), smiles, laughs, makes raspberries, shakes his head from side to side, and is getting good at letting us know how he is feeling about things. He drools like it is his job. He loves his Daddy. He bangs on pianos. He screams when I leave the room. He opens his mouth for spoons full of rice cereal but then doesn't know what to do with what is on the spoon. We'll work on that.
He loves music. He loves baby Mozart, Mama's singing (God love him), and Johnny Cash.

We love him so very much. 

20 things I assume Noah will love:

1. Music (in general)
2. Piano (specifically)
3. Star Wars
4. The Lord of the Rings
5. Legos
6. Camping
7. Dr. Seuss
8. Sleeping
9. Cuddling
10. Dogs
11. Farms
12. Organizing (solely based on a rigorous training program that has already begun)
13. Being read to
14. Super Heroes
15. Going to Church with his family
16. Large family gatherings
17. The water (pools, beaches, lakes, bath tubs)
18. Playing games (I will push for the board variety while I am sure electronic will also creep in there)
19. Technology (solely based on Meredith genetics)
20. Any and all time spent with Daddy

A few disclaimers- I limited the list to things/activities. I totally realize he may not actually love all of these things. I will continue to assume he loves them until we can sit down and have a rational discussion about the pros and cons of an item and why he has decided not to love it. :)