Ironic that as I write this, I myself am experiencing cruel insomnia coming off a string of night shifts. I crashed at 8:00 tonight, but woke up just before midnight, wide awake, ready to take on the world. So as I pop a Benadryl with a an expiration date of December 2008, hoping it still works a little bit, Michelle is sleeping the best she has ever slept in 15 months.
For starters, let me call my parenting style a brand of modified "attachment parenting". I had a natural birth, I breastfed (and still doing so), cloth diaper, wore my baby, and for the most part respond immediately to any cry, scream, or sign of discomfort, and one parent has always been at home with her. When Michelle started having sleep problems at 5 months old, I read many different books on sleep training methods a part from any suggestion of letting her "cry it out" because of course, only cold-heartless parents let their baby cry it out! So we tried it all. When Michelle was 6 months old, in desperation after starting a solid bed time routine, we let her "cry it out" one night. She cried for 12 minutes. The next night she cried for 2 minutes. But it worked. After that, putting her down to sleep, though she would still wake a couple times a night, became much easier. If she woke up in panic and needed comforting, we would bring her to bed if necessary and we would sleep. Point being, we would ALL sleep. Which is the goal. Sleep.
Fast forward to 9 months old, HUGE changes. We move back to Salt Lake City and the booby (me) goes back to work. We lived with my parents for nearly 2 months and with the change in routine, surroundings, etc, once again we went in to survival mode. Nurse her, bring her to bed, let her sleep in the car seat, ANYTHING to get precious sleep. Once we moved into our own place (11 months old), a better routine was established and things got better. Since she thought our bed was a play gym, she rarely came to our bed anymore. Some nights better than others, but it was okay. We usually had her down by 8:00 PM, she would wake up around midnight, need a little comforting, go back to sleep, wake up around 5:00, I would nurse her, and then she would typically sleep until 8:00 or so.
This is not to say we didn't have our props! Since we swaddled Michelle until she simply grew out of her swaddles, we found that the CAR SEAT worked very well as a modified swaddler. However, the car seat turned into sleep-crack! All summer and fall she would not nap without it and on particularly rough nights, strapping her into the straight jacket car-seat in her crib was the only way to get her to sleep. When she turned a year old, I would embarrassingly admit that she required her car seat for restful sleep in conversation. Oh, do I wish I a had a dollar for everyone who said "Oh, she SHOULD be sleeping through the night by now", a statement I heard many times since she was 6 months old.
Fast forward to this week. Michelle had her 15 month check up on Monday. Michelle had a cold in early October and though no longer sick, the last two weeks had been particularly bad with wakings sometimes up around 6 times a night. Michelle was cranky, we were cranky, even the dog was cranky due to sleep deprivation! Our pediatrician recommended the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child". I'll say it again "HEALTHY SLEEP HABITS, HAPPY CHILD" . I picked it up on Tuesday and devoured it. The basic conclusion? We had to let her cry it out. Shit! So why did I believe THIS book and not others? I was so afraid of reading a book and suffering through an onslaught of guilt being hammered with EVERYTHING we have done wrong. But this book did not do that. I felt commended for our dedication to comforting our child, attempts at establishing sleep routines and after reading the many accounts of other parents struggles with sleep, it came down to science. Behavior. Operant conditioning. Pavlov's dogs. Science. And most importantly, consistency. Michelle is an evolving human being. She is no longer a helpless infant, but a toddler now who is learning not only how to get what she NEEDS, but what she WANTS. As a parent, it is my job to teach her about bedtime. Bed time is bed time and we sleep until morning.
So after discussing my findings with Barry, because this is how Barry reads parenting books: I read them and then tell him about what I read, we decided on a plan. Major elements would change in our daily routine. First, Michelle's bed time would be moved up from 7:30 to 6:30. Then, her nap time would be pushed until AFTER lunch. If she doesn't wake up by 7:00 AM, we wake her. NO MORE CAR SEAT FOR SLEEPING. And the hardest part: No matter how hard she screams, when it is time to sleep, we DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES respond to her crying. And here are the results of our experiment!
Day #1: Nap: screaming 30 minutes, sleep 1.5 hours. Bedtime: screaming 30 minutes. Night wakings: one. Screaming back to sleep: 30 minutes. Wake-up 7:00 AM.
Day #2 Nap: screaming 5 minutes, sleep 2 hours. Bedtime: screaming 3 minutes. Night wakings: one. Fussing back to sleep: 5 minutes. Wake-up 7:00 AM.
Day #3 Nap: fussing 2 minutes, sleep 1.5 hours. Bedtime: fussing 3 minutes. Night wakings: NONE!
Day #4 Nap: NO FUSSING, sleep 2 hours. Bedtime: NO CRYING!
Conclusion: OUR CHILD FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 15 MONTHS SLEEPS THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!
And she was not traumatized! After that first night, she still woke up thinking I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. And tonight when I lay her down with her little doll in her arms, she put her hands behind her head, snuggled into her doll and smiled at me as if to say "Thank you momma for teaching me how to sleep on my own. I never KNEW sleep could be SO WONDERFUL!". And oh how wonderful it is!
2 comments:
I love this! I am so glad you taught her so well. No you and your hubby (&dog) can enjoy some much needed long nights rest!
Welcome back to the dream world.
Next up...potty training and getting rid of the bink/bottle...ughhh :)
I discovered that book after my first baby but used it with numbers 2 ,3, and 4. I totally relate to your trials and I love that the book lets you choose what style of soothing you want to use.
Here is where I am eating humble pie - I bragged that Lane was an automatic sleeper - we didn't have to cry it out or do any sort of sleep training with her - well really I was using a great crutch with her and recently had to give it up (I used a Woombie with her since birth and she recently started rolling and that is dangerous)Anyway, we are on night 3 of cry it out - so far so good, but still some fussing and crying. I hate it!
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