Before Jensen was born, and about the first month or so, I started flipping through the pages of the "healthy sleep habits, happy child" or whatever that book was called. I read about letting kids "cry it out" and how necessary it was to do in order to get some sleep. Exhausted parents shared their testimonies to bear witness to the fact that it worked. Poor souls, I thought. I skimmed the pages for future reference, just in case, but wasn't really concerned. After all, my little gem was sleeping from 9 pm until 6 am. I don't think he's had that schedule, or slept through the night in four months. He's not napping during the day at daycare. Help! We need a schedule!
This morning, at 4:30 in the morning (Jensen's normal waking time) I kept thinking about that damn book, and how I should have kept it, highlighted it, memorized it, wrote an article about it, something........I actually nudged Matt when I got back to bed and asked, "do you think Jensen needs to do that sleep training, thing?" "Why?" Matt answered, "he has us perfectly trained." Which is so true. For the past six months, we've never let Jensen make a peep without getting up to check on him, give him his pacifier, feed him, cuddle him, whatever he needs. Have we created a monster? Now don't get me wrong, we love this little guy more than anything in this world, but I think Matt and I have both realized that we might be approaching the time that everyone warned us about--letting him cry it out. As I just typed those words, Jensen was crying, and Matt walked in to say "I think we need to just let him cry." Uggg. I remember hearing one person at Kirkwood, whom I admire very much, tell me that she had to let her little one cry it out. The first night they let her cry it out, her mom had to clean the entire house to avoid giving in--and she cried for two hours. Someone told us at a party this weekend, that the first two weeks of "sleep training" for your little one is AWFUL, but worth it.
Awful, but worth it. Hard, but necessary. We'll see how this goes. Any readers out there have any advice? I know many of you had to do this, and it works, right? I might go call one of you right now to be reassured.
Maddie 2012
12 years ago
Unfortunately I have no words of wisdom. We still fight with Emma daily to go to sleep at bed time (we never put her on a schedule). The kid must think she'll miss something if her little peepers close! For that reason, my advice is to do it NOW!! Learn from our mistakes! It really does suck, but yes, it'll be so worth it in the end. You tend to learn a lot with your first child that you will definitely change with the second child!!
ReplyDeleteMindy,
ReplyDeleteThe one piece of advice my friends gave me when I had Henry was to develop a sleep routine. From the time he was born, anytime after 6:00pm he fell asleep, I put him in his crib and fed him in his dark room eachtime he would wake up. Then, when he would wake up in the morning anytime after 5:00am, we would get up and get moving for the day, so he would begin to understand sleep time/awake time. I don't know if he goes to bed so well now because we were so diligent about that routine or not, but we put him to bed between 7:00-7:15 everynight (no books, no sippy, only a bink), say a quick goodnight, give him a kiss and leave. We typically will read just before bed in the family room together. When he goes to bed, he will talk to himself and eventually fall asleep, no tears. He started sleeping through the night when we added protein to his diet. This was at around 7.5 months because I waited 6 months before he got oatmeal (I know, I am crazy) As for food, he really liked the chicken and apples and turkey and sweet potatoe mixtures at walmart. When he got protein, he slept through the night (from 7-6am) and will now sleep 12 hours at night and take a 2 hour nap during the day. It will happen. He is growing so fast so he may just be really hungry in the wee hours of the morning. You will see a difference when he gets protein, most of my girlfriends did and so did we. :) Good luck!