As I have mentioned before Noah has decided he doesn’t like to sleep, EVER. He’s especially not sleeping in his crib. We can set him down in his crib ever so gently and BAM! just like that he wakes himself up. I don’t know how he does it! Why is getting a baby to sleep so hard?!
(This is proof he can sleep in his crib, just chooses not to!)
Our usual bedtime routine is giving Noah a bath around 6:30. Afterwards we either play downstairs for a while or if he’s tired we go into our bedroom (his crib is in our room for now) and read a few stories while playing soft music. We dim the lights and read in a low voice to let him know it’s time for sleep. Then I usually nurse him to sleep. Which had been working for us, but as of lately Noah has been needing me to get him back to sleep throughout the night. I think it’s because I’ve been nursing him to sleep and he associates nursing with falling asleep. So after many sleepless nights Anthony and I decided we had to sleep train. But, I was really nervous about it. I feel like nursing him to sleep is such a special time for just him and I. Plus that’s the only time I can get some cuddles in J. I researched different methods online and found that I really did not want to try the cry it out method. It seems so cruel and as my friend put it: if we can make them happy why not, we know what they need and crying it out seems so mean.
I found a method called the Pick –Up (PU) /Put-Down (PD) Method. Where you place the baby in the crib while they are drowsy but not asleep. When they start to cry you pick them up for 30 seconds max to reassure them. Then when the stop crying you put them down. That seemed logical to me. This way there was minimal crying and he could learn to fall asleep on his own. Perfect—I thought!
Finally, I decided to try it after weeks of putting it off and not really wanting my cuddle time to end. Noah and I started our system of PU and PD, but he figured it out! As SOON as I would pick him up off of his mattress he would stop crying. Then when I’d put him down again he’d start crying once more. He knew if he cried that I would pick him up. I tried for an hour and a half of this method. NO GOOD. He cried and cried and was at that point not going to fall asleep on his own. I stopped for the day and decided to try again the next. I did and the same thing happened. He would not fall asleep by himself. FAIL!
I decided to take a break from sleep training and research different methods. Finally I found an in-between the PU and PD Method and crying it out. The Book is called Sleep Easy. The routine is to put baby in the crib awake and you tell them goodnight and give them a kiss and then you leave the room for 5 minutes. When you return you do not touch baby you just reassure them. You only stay for 30 minutes at max and then leave. But this time you leave for 10 minutes. Then repeat the routine. Next for 15 minutes and then 20 minutes thereafter until baby falls asleep. Okay, I thought I can do this, right?! We had the plan for about two or three weeks before I finally said okay lets try. But when the time came I just couldn’t do it! I don’t want to make my baby cry! So my mom suggested a system that she did with me when I was Noah’s age. You sit next the crib and reassure baby while they try to fall asleep. It is a cry it out method but at least your next to the baby and reassure them that everything is okay. I tried it first thing in the morning. My heart broke hearing him cry. I felt like an awful mother. Who lets their baby cry like this?? It took him 40 minutes to fall asleep and he slept for an hour! Then the next nap came around and he cried for 45 minutes and slept for 50 minutes. Then the last nap, he cried for an hour and would not fall asleep. I couldn’t take it anymore and I picked him up and nursed him to sleep.
Then bedtime rolled around. I was giving myself pep-talks to prepare for more crying. So we do our normal bedtime routine except when he was done nursing I put him in the crib. I closed my eyes as I placed him in there bracing myself for the crying to begin. But to my surprise he rolled over and went right to sleep! Could this really be? Did he just fall asleep on his own?! He slept for an hour and then woke up. I took that as a small victory. I nursed him and again set him in the crib. He cried for 20 minutes and fell asleep. This time he only slept for 15 minutes before waking again. Once again I nursed him and then put him in his crib but this time his crying was different. It was an upset cry. It was a whole body shaking, lungs fully screaming bloody murder kind of cry. I tried to reassure him over his loud shrieks. My own eyes tearing up from guilt. You can do this, I kept saying to myself. He cried for an hour and half like this. I cried right along with him. It. Was. Awful.
Anthony had slept down on the couch because he had to go to work the next day. After the hour and a half I came down to him crying. I couldn’t take it anymore. I asked him what I should do. He said it was okay to take him out. He HAD fallen asleep by himself a few times throughout the day. That in itself was great! But I felt like an awful human being. Who lets their precious little six-month-old baby cry like that? I tossed and turned the rest of the night. Noah slept with us for the rest of the night. I couldn’t let him go…I was a bad mom.
The next day, I got up (sleep deprived) and almost cried at the thought of trying again to get him to sleep on his own. But I knew I had to. Right? This was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?? Yes, yes, I thought. The first nap came around and I almost cried putting him in his crib. What a mean mom I am. He started crying right away. The same cry as the night before (Whole body cries). Again, I cried with him. I only last 45 minutes. I couldn’t take it any more. The next nap I only let him cry for 15 minutes before I took him out and nursed him to sleep. I felt deep down in my core that this was not the right thing to do. This was not how I should be doing this. When Anthony got home that night I burst into tears. I know that he needs to sleep more at night and I know that Noah should be sleeping more in his crib. But this just wasn’t working. Luckily, I’m married to the greatest guy in the world. He told me it’s okay that we can try again later and that if it’s not right, it’s not right. So there you have it- yet another sleep training FAIL!
I have no idea what our next step will be. But I do know that this wasn’t the right way for our family. Sleep training is hard. There is no good way to do it. It seems like babies should sleep more, but the fact is maybe they need us during the night. I mean, he is only 6 months old! So for now I take the sleepless nights and hold my baby a little tighter knowing that I’m a good mom.
Discovering Natural Motherhood 