Sleep Training: Round Two

Oh sleep training! Such an interesting topic of conversation amongst new moms.

One of the questions I was asked the most, and still am asked is... "How is Jack sleeping?"

Everyone is so curious about his sleeping habits, but the thing is...his sleeping habits tell a lot about our sleep training or lack thereof.

Have you read this yet? Parents-to-Be, Listen to your Smug, Sleep-Training Friends. So much truth in these words, it's rather amusing! Truly though, if someone has a baby that is sleeping well at an early age, I would guess that some form of sleep training has occurred in that little person's life.

In the first two paragraphs she writes, "If you’re getting ready to have your first child, you’ve probably been inundated with advice; what diapers to use, which bottles are best, which strollers are best for the money – these are all helpful tips. But really listen up when your parent friends talk about what time their kids go to bed. If it’s before Wheel of Fortune is over – they’re doing it right. And they’re probably sleep training. I’m having a moment right now where I hate all my friends who went the sleep training route. In my head, I am winning the suffering olympics of parenting, because I do it so many hours a day. If your kids go to bed at seven o’clock, you can’t complain about anything, ever. Do you hear me? Shut your big, fat, sleep-training, superior-parenting mouth-hole. Also – you are a much better parent than I am. I can admit that now. Parents-to-be – here’s what happens when you don’t sleep train:

Right now my toddler is jogging in place in his pack-and-play. It’s 10:02 p.m. Why do you have a 3-year-old falling asleep in a pack-and-play, you ask? Because he has to be in jail or he will wander around his room endlessly. People think I am exaggerating when I say this – I assure you I’m not. I put my child to bed at 8:30 every night, and every night he talks to himself for roughly two and a half hours. Shoot me."

The rest of the article is definitely worth a read.

Anyhow, I married a man that is extremely flexible and he does not like feeling bound by a schedule.  So I knew the idea of sleep training or having a set schedule for our little man wasn't going to go over very well with Peter, and considering Peter was going to be watching him two days a week, I knew I'd have to hold everything with open hands.

So we didn't sleep train really. We weren't parent led and we weren't baby led. We fell somewhere in between, is it called combination? And considering we were with Jack ALL the time, we got use to reading his cues. And for the most part, he was pretty normal...well minus the fact that he was a preemie and woke up every 3 hours in the middle of the night for the first 3 months of his life. The kid was hungry and the pediatrician said to keep feeding him when he woke up ...they just wanted him to get to 8 lbs. And I suppose most newborns start off around that weight, but it took Jack at least 3 months to get to that stage.

Anyhow, he finally went from waking up every 3 hours to every 4 hours ....and eventually (feels like forever) he was only waking up twice in the night. And we hadn't really done the whole cry it out thing with Jack (maybe once?), and I think he was about 6 months, and at that stage, I was fine with waking up twice in the night. I wasn't thriving, but I wasn't angry either...so I figured I would just keep doing it until I cracked.

So before we took Jack to Ireland, he was sleeping great! Maybe waking up once in the night? But he would go down at like 7 and wake up around 6:30 with maybe one nighttime feeding around 3 or so. And then we took him on a plane and traveled across different time zones and forced him to sleep when he wasn't tired and kept him awake when he was exhausted.  And it was all a bit of a nightmare sleeping wise for him.  The jet lag impacted him so much and he was so distraught and confused and his sleep schedule was all out of sorts.

So it made sense that the confusion continued once we arrived back in Seattle. Nap times were the worst. I would have to feed him to sleep and Peter would have to nap with him. He hated being in his crib and would scream any time you put him in there. And night time...The little man was waking up a few hours after he would go to bed. Nightmares? Hungry? I don't know. But whatever it was, it was driving me wild. One night he woke up in the middle of the night, and I turned to the husband in bed and said I can't do this anymore. We had agreed that we would continue waking up in the night with Jack as long as we felt capable of doing so. My mom motto is ... you do what you need to do to survive, and I just wasn't able to do it anymore. I cracked.

So we did what we needed to do to survive.  And the next night sleep training: round two commenced. We were much more focused and disciplined this time around. I don't even know if you can say we sleep trained the first time around...maybe this was really sleep training: round one. And we let our little man cry...it was hard, but considering it was 9 at night, Peter and I were out in the living room watching a TV show. I was thankful we weren't in bed trying to sleep. That would have been really hard! And we watched the clock...and the time went by, and we checked on him and patted his back at the various intervals - 2, 5, 7, 10, 12, etc. And that first night he cried for nearly an hour, and the second night it was 30 minutes, and the third night...he slept straight through the night like old times.

And guess what? Nap times are so much easier now too. I think I was really sensitive to the whole sleep training thing because Jack was a preemie, and I just figured he was waking up because he was hungry...which may have been the case, I suppose I'll never know. But what I do know is that I have moved beyond the point of surviving and I now feel like I'm thriving...a full night of uninterrupted sleep makes a world of difference. Now if only I could get my early bird to sleep a little longer in the mornings.

Hey I suppose that's a first world problem.

Xoxo,

Malia