So about two years ago, I came down hard on parents that let their kids cry it out. This week, I've joined their ranks. Call me hypocritical (and I do), but I couldn't take it anymore and suddenly, there I was, reading the book and proposing it to G, much to his total shock and amazement. For months now, we've struggled with the little one's sleep. She takes forever to put down. It usually involves bouncing forever on an exercise ball, then slowly, gently placing her in the crib and hoping that she didn't wake up in the process, which meant we'd have to start all over again. Then, if we did manage to make the transfer, hoping that she didn't wake up in 15-20 minutes.
It wasn't always this way. Well, I take it back. It was always hard, but in the beginning, once we went through the dance, the little L would at least take a solid nap. We were usually lucky enough to get one good (sometimes up to 3 hour) nap a day. So it was worth it, and also meant that we didn't care about the other 2, crappy naps. But at 4 months, it all went to shit. First, we traveled, and I thought she was adjusting. Then she rolled over, and I thought maybe it was this developmental milestone that was keeping her up. The 3-hour nap disappeared completely, leaving us with the remaining crappy naps. G and I started leaving our Kindle in the baby's room and catching up Netflix. I'm on my 4th season of West Wing episodes, watching only while I'm bouncing away on that stupid ball that I never want to see again. If we had a longer nap, it was because we went in and put back to sleep every time she woke up, cobbling together a 2 hour nap maybe but after almost that much time rocking and bouncing.
Then we thought she was maybe teething. In the 4 months since then, the little L does not have a single tooth but many a night has been spent thinking she must be teething. If she is, that tooth sure is taking its time making its way out.
Naps weren't the only issue. Nighttime was getting better and better initially until randomly, she slept through the night for 2 nights in March. And I mean REALLY slept through the night, from 9pm to 7am. On the third night, she got up at 6am and we felt greedy when we wanted more. Then 5am. Then 4. Well you get the picture. About a week afterwards, she woke up at 1am and we fed her. From then on, she wanted to eat at 1am, then again at 4, then one last time when she got up in the morning. Many nights, she'd eat and go right back to bed. But about once or twice a week, she'd wake up and want to play for 2 hours.
It wasn't just that G and I were miserable (we were, and taking it out on each other). But I felt terrible that L wasn't getting the sleep she needed. Sleep begets sleep and I'm more convinced of that than ever. I returned to work part-time in April, then full-time in June, and wondered how I managed to function. The little L started daycare and things deteriorated even further. Every day, I'd get their daily reports informing me of how she'd taken one crappy half hour nap all day. And of course, that made her a bear at bedtime. They told me that they'd started putting her to sleep on her tummy and I didn't even care, though I'd been super paranoid about that with D. But while that worked one week, it never did again.
At home, we still swaddled. We tried numerous times to stop, resulting in more weeks of sleep disasters. We'd give up, put her back in the swaddle, and sleep would improve for a day or two. We'd tell ourselves she wasn't ready to lose the swaddle and that must have been the issue all along. Until a few days went by and we again ran into issues. The little L has always been strong, and swaddling her has tested my strength. I'm rarely able to do it and have it actually hold. G is the master swaddler around here, and even he had issues. She kicked and screamed and fought, making us think again and again that she was done with the damn thing. But without it, we couldn't get her to fall asleep in our arms. And if by some miracle, we did, we couldn't move her to the crib.
I tried every no-cry solution out there. Most of them tell you to wait until baby is fully asleep before transferring and help them through the sleep transitions by putting back to sleep. Clearly that was getting us nowhere. I also spent all kinds of money on things that are supposed to help wean from the swaddle. But they just seemed to piss her off more. I didn't mind swaddling. I would have happily done it til she was 5 if she let me. But once she started rolling at 4 months, getting her to stay still was horrible. I hated having to depend on G to do it all the time. And at some point, it clearly wasn't helping lengthen her sleep as it once had either.
The other thing about the swaddle that was killing us was that we couldn't really give her any opportunities to self soothe. With D, for example, we'd let her sit in the crib for a few if she wasn't really crying. And sometimes, after just minimal fussing, she'd go right back to sleep. I usually had a bathroom rule. Anytime she cried, I'd go pee first before grabbing her. With the little L, the moment she got up, she rolled over in her swaddle, and got pissed that her arms were restrained. I always got freaked out by this and went running in.
It also didn't help that it's been much harder to get the little one on any kind of schedule. With an older sister around, her needs often fall last on the totem pole. Naps disrupted while I go get D from daycare, bedtimes playing second fiddle to a toddler's lengthy routine and dawdling. In the beginning, for example, I knew the little L wanted to nap in the evenings, but I could never find time between getting D and starting dinner. It didn't help that getting the little one to bed has always been a production, so I needed some time and never had it in the evenings. D fell into a natural routine early on because I had nothing to do but run on her clock. Not so this time around.
So I took the plunge. I read Ferber and decided it couldn't be worse than what we already had going. For one thing, the little L often cried forever in our arms before settling down anyway. If she's crying anyway, I thought, who cares whether I'm there or not. All last week, I prepared. I read the book. I decided that we would do it all in one swoop, the bedtimes, naps, and losing the swaddle. We'd try it for a week. If it didn't work, we'd move onto something else. We traveled last week so I was waiting til we got back and everyone had time to adjust back to the time change.
Basically, Ferber says to let your baby cry it out, but go in at regular intervals to check on her. Stay for just a minute, to reassure yourself and her that you're there. But make her figure out how to get to sleep on her own. A friend sent some sleep notes that promised to be less crying but ended up being mostly "Ferber-lite." So according to this lady (a consultant my friend had hired with her first), comfort more when you go in, then walk out. I sensed that this wouldn't work with L, who would most likely just scream at the sight of me. But I decided to start there. But most importantly, these notes talked about a strict routine for your little one, waking up a specific time each day, and putting down at the exact same time every day for naps and bed time. Ferber says essentially the same thing, but the consultant gave more specifics. So for a 4-month old taking 3 naps, for example, wake up at 7-7:30, put down for nap#1 by 8-8:30, and so on.
Since I've gone on for too long already, tomorrow, I'll tell you how it's all going (not bad!). But I'll say this, it's much less traumatic than I thought it would be. And the absolute key, more than anything else, has turned out to be the strict schedule.
It wasn't always this way. Well, I take it back. It was always hard, but in the beginning, once we went through the dance, the little L would at least take a solid nap. We were usually lucky enough to get one good (sometimes up to 3 hour) nap a day. So it was worth it, and also meant that we didn't care about the other 2, crappy naps. But at 4 months, it all went to shit. First, we traveled, and I thought she was adjusting. Then she rolled over, and I thought maybe it was this developmental milestone that was keeping her up. The 3-hour nap disappeared completely, leaving us with the remaining crappy naps. G and I started leaving our Kindle in the baby's room and catching up Netflix. I'm on my 4th season of West Wing episodes, watching only while I'm bouncing away on that stupid ball that I never want to see again. If we had a longer nap, it was because we went in and put back to sleep every time she woke up, cobbling together a 2 hour nap maybe but after almost that much time rocking and bouncing.
Then we thought she was maybe teething. In the 4 months since then, the little L does not have a single tooth but many a night has been spent thinking she must be teething. If she is, that tooth sure is taking its time making its way out.
Naps weren't the only issue. Nighttime was getting better and better initially until randomly, she slept through the night for 2 nights in March. And I mean REALLY slept through the night, from 9pm to 7am. On the third night, she got up at 6am and we felt greedy when we wanted more. Then 5am. Then 4. Well you get the picture. About a week afterwards, she woke up at 1am and we fed her. From then on, she wanted to eat at 1am, then again at 4, then one last time when she got up in the morning. Many nights, she'd eat and go right back to bed. But about once or twice a week, she'd wake up and want to play for 2 hours.
It wasn't just that G and I were miserable (we were, and taking it out on each other). But I felt terrible that L wasn't getting the sleep she needed. Sleep begets sleep and I'm more convinced of that than ever. I returned to work part-time in April, then full-time in June, and wondered how I managed to function. The little L started daycare and things deteriorated even further. Every day, I'd get their daily reports informing me of how she'd taken one crappy half hour nap all day. And of course, that made her a bear at bedtime. They told me that they'd started putting her to sleep on her tummy and I didn't even care, though I'd been super paranoid about that with D. But while that worked one week, it never did again.
At home, we still swaddled. We tried numerous times to stop, resulting in more weeks of sleep disasters. We'd give up, put her back in the swaddle, and sleep would improve for a day or two. We'd tell ourselves she wasn't ready to lose the swaddle and that must have been the issue all along. Until a few days went by and we again ran into issues. The little L has always been strong, and swaddling her has tested my strength. I'm rarely able to do it and have it actually hold. G is the master swaddler around here, and even he had issues. She kicked and screamed and fought, making us think again and again that she was done with the damn thing. But without it, we couldn't get her to fall asleep in our arms. And if by some miracle, we did, we couldn't move her to the crib.
I tried every no-cry solution out there. Most of them tell you to wait until baby is fully asleep before transferring and help them through the sleep transitions by putting back to sleep. Clearly that was getting us nowhere. I also spent all kinds of money on things that are supposed to help wean from the swaddle. But they just seemed to piss her off more. I didn't mind swaddling. I would have happily done it til she was 5 if she let me. But once she started rolling at 4 months, getting her to stay still was horrible. I hated having to depend on G to do it all the time. And at some point, it clearly wasn't helping lengthen her sleep as it once had either.
The other thing about the swaddle that was killing us was that we couldn't really give her any opportunities to self soothe. With D, for example, we'd let her sit in the crib for a few if she wasn't really crying. And sometimes, after just minimal fussing, she'd go right back to sleep. I usually had a bathroom rule. Anytime she cried, I'd go pee first before grabbing her. With the little L, the moment she got up, she rolled over in her swaddle, and got pissed that her arms were restrained. I always got freaked out by this and went running in.
It also didn't help that it's been much harder to get the little one on any kind of schedule. With an older sister around, her needs often fall last on the totem pole. Naps disrupted while I go get D from daycare, bedtimes playing second fiddle to a toddler's lengthy routine and dawdling. In the beginning, for example, I knew the little L wanted to nap in the evenings, but I could never find time between getting D and starting dinner. It didn't help that getting the little one to bed has always been a production, so I needed some time and never had it in the evenings. D fell into a natural routine early on because I had nothing to do but run on her clock. Not so this time around.
So I took the plunge. I read Ferber and decided it couldn't be worse than what we already had going. For one thing, the little L often cried forever in our arms before settling down anyway. If she's crying anyway, I thought, who cares whether I'm there or not. All last week, I prepared. I read the book. I decided that we would do it all in one swoop, the bedtimes, naps, and losing the swaddle. We'd try it for a week. If it didn't work, we'd move onto something else. We traveled last week so I was waiting til we got back and everyone had time to adjust back to the time change.
Basically, Ferber says to let your baby cry it out, but go in at regular intervals to check on her. Stay for just a minute, to reassure yourself and her that you're there. But make her figure out how to get to sleep on her own. A friend sent some sleep notes that promised to be less crying but ended up being mostly "Ferber-lite." So according to this lady (a consultant my friend had hired with her first), comfort more when you go in, then walk out. I sensed that this wouldn't work with L, who would most likely just scream at the sight of me. But I decided to start there. But most importantly, these notes talked about a strict routine for your little one, waking up a specific time each day, and putting down at the exact same time every day for naps and bed time. Ferber says essentially the same thing, but the consultant gave more specifics. So for a 4-month old taking 3 naps, for example, wake up at 7-7:30, put down for nap#1 by 8-8:30, and so on.
Since I've gone on for too long already, tomorrow, I'll tell you how it's all going (not bad!). But I'll say this, it's much less traumatic than I thought it would be. And the absolute key, more than anything else, has turned out to be the strict schedule.
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