Wednesday Night- Can We Have A Do-Over?
Oops...miscommunication and a summer schedule not conducive to
sleep training leads to the baby being put down to sleep at 7:00 without
his real bedtime routine and without a good plan as what to do next.
5, 10, 15 min. check ins.....crying, crying, more crying.
Now
here's the thing...The Sleepeasy Solution says that if the baby is "
calming, crying intermittently, or whining" to stop the check-ins and
only start them again if he starts to cry hard.
So, that is where
you currently find me Reader...listening to my son cry on and off...not
sure whether I should do a check-in and cause perhaps harder
crying...or if this is "intermittent" at all? It's been going on for 40 min. Instead of cleaning (my escape last night) I am writing.
And I hate it.
So far I have not seen the lovely pay off
of any of this. My baby was upset most of the day and we parents are
trying to do-it-all-right but feel like we are doing-it-all-wrong. Right
at this moment I have no idea what to do. I know if I go in and pick him up I
will lose all the "hard work" we have already done and yet that
is.all.i.want.to.do.
I want my son to trust me, to know I am always
there, to not be sad or frustrated or crying for...well over an hour
now. Right now it feels like all he is learning is that when I walk out
of the room I won't come back. that he is alone. worse. that he is on his own.
How long do I let this go on? And as I type that silence. Thank you, God.
Well over an hour and not at the correct bedtime but our Love is asleep.
Now, in all this I have the added joy of waking up Noah when he IS asleep to nurse him. This will decrease on a weaning schedule (set out by The Sleepeasy Solution) over the next few days. Several times a night I have to actually wake the poor boy up after he has worked so hard to fall asleep to nurse him for a few moments. I just did this...and as I laid him back in his pack and play his eyes popped open and he began to protest. His little hand grabbed mine. His grip tightened.
And I pulled away.
Why on Earth am I doing this?
Maybe I'll remember in the morning.
(5th in a series)
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Diary of a Sleep Training Parent- Naps Gone Wild
Wednesday- Naps Gone Wild
First nap- cried for an hour...no sleep (The Protestor)
Second nap- cried for 30 min. slept for 30 min. (The Procrastinator)
Third nap- fell asleep in car slept 45 min.
"The Protestor" and "the Procrastinator" are terms used in The Sleepeasy Solution to describe how some kids behave at nap time. Kind of gave me confidence that they knew what the heck they were talking about.
But naps did NOT go well...frustration was mounting all day.
(4th in a series)
First nap- cried for an hour...no sleep (The Protestor)
Second nap- cried for 30 min. slept for 30 min. (The Procrastinator)
Third nap- fell asleep in car slept 45 min.
"The Protestor" and "the Procrastinator" are terms used in The Sleepeasy Solution to describe how some kids behave at nap time. Kind of gave me confidence that they knew what the heck they were talking about.
But naps did NOT go well...frustration was mounting all day.
(4th in a series)
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Diary of a Sleep Training Parent- A Hopeful Beginning
Tuesday Night- A Hopeful Beginning
We had our plan. The bedtime routine that I had been doing for several days was ready. Nighttime weaning schedule - check. My husband and I went over the rules of the night. It began.
Bath, changing, songs, books, white noise, nursing, elephant, pacifier, Mr. Bear music box, "I love you baby boy" with a few kisses and into the dreaded pack and play he went.
He was screaming before I left the room...before he was in the pack and play really. I left.
His little face as I set him down broke my heart but I was resolute. We all need this.
5 min later I "check-in" and said all the supportive positive things I could in the allowed 30 seconds. My baby boy was up against the corner of the pack and play (closest to the door) having an all out fit. Honestly, it helped that he was using his tantrum cry...not his sad, hurt, or hungry cry. Something in my Mommy ears heard that tantrum cry and knew this was an OK lesson for him. I left and checked again at 10, 15, 15...then at 52 min. silence.
I felt a little victorious I'm not going to lie.
And- the kitchen got cleaned...oh, I cleaned the heck out of it.
Besides his scheduled night feedings he only woke once at 12:30 for about 25 min. According to The Sleepeasy Solution Noah was to stay in his crib until 7:30 am. He woke at 6:30 am and cried for an hour. We did the little verbal check-ins but this was...without a doubt...the WORST part. There I lay...2 feet from him (if that) and I couldn't reach out and pull him into our bed and snuggle him back to sleep as I had been doing for months. I lay there and he cried and the whole thing felt very unnatural but I wanted to play by the rules (for now).
When the clock hit 7:30 we threw on the lights and showered Noah with love, praise, and cuddles.
I am sure it was (mostly) in my head but it didn't seem like he looked at me quite the same way through breakfast. We were happy with how night 1 went...and hopeful about the rest of the week.
(3rd in a series)
We had our plan. The bedtime routine that I had been doing for several days was ready. Nighttime weaning schedule - check. My husband and I went over the rules of the night. It began.
Bath, changing, songs, books, white noise, nursing, elephant, pacifier, Mr. Bear music box, "I love you baby boy" with a few kisses and into the dreaded pack and play he went.
He was screaming before I left the room...before he was in the pack and play really. I left.
His little face as I set him down broke my heart but I was resolute. We all need this.
5 min later I "check-in" and said all the supportive positive things I could in the allowed 30 seconds. My baby boy was up against the corner of the pack and play (closest to the door) having an all out fit. Honestly, it helped that he was using his tantrum cry...not his sad, hurt, or hungry cry. Something in my Mommy ears heard that tantrum cry and knew this was an OK lesson for him. I left and checked again at 10, 15, 15...then at 52 min. silence.
I felt a little victorious I'm not going to lie.
And- the kitchen got cleaned...oh, I cleaned the heck out of it.
Besides his scheduled night feedings he only woke once at 12:30 for about 25 min. According to The Sleepeasy Solution Noah was to stay in his crib until 7:30 am. He woke at 6:30 am and cried for an hour. We did the little verbal check-ins but this was...without a doubt...the WORST part. There I lay...2 feet from him (if that) and I couldn't reach out and pull him into our bed and snuggle him back to sleep as I had been doing for months. I lay there and he cried and the whole thing felt very unnatural but I wanted to play by the rules (for now).
When the clock hit 7:30 we threw on the lights and showered Noah with love, praise, and cuddles.
I am sure it was (mostly) in my head but it didn't seem like he looked at me quite the same way through breakfast. We were happy with how night 1 went...and hopeful about the rest of the week.
(3rd in a series)
Monday, July 9, 2012
Diary of a Sleep Training Parent- The End of an Era
Monday Night- The End of an Era
Monday night I put Noah to bed as I had for months...with nursing and staying near to him until he drifted off. He woke up 5 times throughout the night each time needing to be nursed and held back to sleep. There was a "nice" stretch from 3:00 am to 4:00 am where Noah laid on each and every part of my body trying to get comfortable. By morning I had one stretch of 3 hours of sleep and the rest of the night had been in dribs and drabs. The night was very typical and yet very special. I was keeping track of Noah's wakings and feedings so I could begin night weaning and so we would have a starting point for our program the next night. It was a hard night because I knew that we had decided that this would (hopefully) be the end of this behavior. I had posted on facebook about our plans to sleep train and received gabs of supportive remarks. I appreciated each one but also knew many of my fb friends did not support sleep training but were respectfully remaining silent on my wall. I felt pangs of guilt for abandoning a philosophy I had clung to and shared with others for many months. In some ways putting it on facebook made it official and now I couldn't back down...maybe that's why I posted it in the first place.
Goodnight sleeping with Noah tucked between us. Goodnight little hands stroking my arm as sleep took over. Goodnight rocking, and rocking, and rocking. Goodnight laying with Noah until the pacifier fell out and his eyes slowly closed. Goodnight, my newborn. I loved every moment of it.
(2nd in a series)
Monday night I put Noah to bed as I had for months...with nursing and staying near to him until he drifted off. He woke up 5 times throughout the night each time needing to be nursed and held back to sleep. There was a "nice" stretch from 3:00 am to 4:00 am where Noah laid on each and every part of my body trying to get comfortable. By morning I had one stretch of 3 hours of sleep and the rest of the night had been in dribs and drabs. The night was very typical and yet very special. I was keeping track of Noah's wakings and feedings so I could begin night weaning and so we would have a starting point for our program the next night. It was a hard night because I knew that we had decided that this would (hopefully) be the end of this behavior. I had posted on facebook about our plans to sleep train and received gabs of supportive remarks. I appreciated each one but also knew many of my fb friends did not support sleep training but were respectfully remaining silent on my wall. I felt pangs of guilt for abandoning a philosophy I had clung to and shared with others for many months. In some ways putting it on facebook made it official and now I couldn't back down...maybe that's why I posted it in the first place.
Goodnight sleeping with Noah tucked between us. Goodnight little hands stroking my arm as sleep took over. Goodnight rocking, and rocking, and rocking. Goodnight laying with Noah until the pacifier fell out and his eyes slowly closed. Goodnight, my newborn. I loved every moment of it.
(2nd in a series)
Sunday, July 8, 2012
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)
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)
Thursday, June 21, 2012
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.
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!
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!
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