I'll Have a Full Night's Sleep With a Heaping Side of Guilt Please

I've been trying to work this post out in my head for a couple of days, but have been having trouble finding the right way to approach it. Matter-of-factly? Humorously? Heavily laden with guilt? I don't know. How do you describe doing something as a mother that you never thought you would do? How do you describe putting your child in the crib and walking away while they scream for you, without looking like a monster? Although I haven't quite figured out how to approach it, I'm going to try my best to talk about what we've been going through for the last few days. Perhaps someone, somewhere will benefit. Bear with me.

In case you are just tuning in, a little back story: G is (was) a terrible sleeper. That's pretty much it.

Oh, you want more? OK. Well picture this: Eight and a half months of fighting to get your baby to sleep. Eight and a half months of having no longer than two hours of sleep at a time (two hours of sleep being a good night). At his worst, it was taking over two hours to get my little man to sleep at night. Two hours of patting, rocking, shooshing and nursing. In fact, some nights I ended up nursing him so much that he would spit up from being so full. Finally after two hours of nursing, spitting up, nursing again, screaming, rocking, bouncing, etc. he would allow me to place him in his crib. Heart pounding from fear, I would gently lower him into the depths of his crib, stand for twenty minutes, on the tips of my toes, bent down with my hands on his chest. Only then could I even think about ever so slowly sneaking away.

So what? Everyone knows it's hard to get a baby to sleep, right? If that's all I had to endure then this wouldn't even be a blog post, but that's not where it ended. Between fifteen and thirty minutes after stealthily sneaking out of his room the wailing would begin. Back to the room I would go, rock, nurse, shoosh, repeat. If I was very very lucky he would then sleep for an hour in his crib, mind you, only if I was lucky. On such a lucky night, Husband and I would wearily crawl into our beds and pray for rest. (No really, I think I actually petitioned to God on a nightly basis for my baby to sleep - death and famine all over the world? Sure, but could you also make my baby sleep? Please??) Like clockwork, an hour later G-Man came a-callin'. Have you ever noticed if you wake up at the wrong time in your sleep cycle it almost physically hurts to move? Well inevitably that's right where I would be when the little man would begin calling to me to from the other room. In a sleepy haze, I would drag myself to the other room, pluck him from his crib and as quickly as possible slip us both back into bed where he would happily nurse to sleep. Eventually he would fall off of me and I could adjust and fall asleep myself. Then... thirty minutes to an hour later I would feel a slap on the face, or a kick to the stomach and scream in my ear. Having not even bothered to *ehem* put myself away, I would quickly pop the boob back in and off to lala land we would go. This lovely pattern would then repeat all night long, every thirty to sixty minutes until we woke up for the day. Some nights I would just pray for morning to come because being awake had to be better than that.

For months Husband has been trying to persuade me to let G cry it out (CIO) but every fiber of my being told me it was wrong. Leaving your child to cry himself to sleep? How cruel and unfeeling can you be? Instead I read every book I could get my hands on, on how to get a baby to sleep gently. The No Cry Sleep Solution, Good Night Sleep Tight, Nighttime Parenting, Attachment Parenting, on and on. While some of the books offered up some useful tools nothing really worked. At Husband's insistence I believe I did try CIO one night (see blog post from a couple months ago) and he just kept crying and crying and crying. He cried so hard that he spit up/threw up all over himself. Eventually, nerves completely shot, I rescued my baby from his crib of torture and swore never again. Lesson learned. Never swear.

After eight and a half months of sleep deprivation (an actual form of torture) I decided to research this whole cry it out business. I grabbed Ferber's book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems and decided that perhaps he wasn't really the devil like everyone thinks he is. Perhaps a man who is the director at the Center For Pediatric Sleep Disorders and has taught at Harvard might actually have something of value to say about how to get my child to sleep. Maybe he knows something I (and many other mothers) don't. Maybe... With Husband's support, I decided to give it a try. I committed to three nights and if it didn't work we would quit. I could take three nights of crying and I was feeling pretty sure that three nights wouldn't turn my sweet baby into some sort of serial killer. Right?? And so it began.

Night 1: This night was kind of a mishmash of two techniques: Kim West's Sleep Lady Shuffle, followed by Ferber's CIO. After our regular bedtime routine of bath, pajamas, stories and one last nursing session I started with the Shuffle which involved sitting by the crib and gently soothing him from there. After about an hour of him thinking I was in there to play with him I fully submitted myself to CIO. I gently helped him lie down one last time, gave him his lovey, turned on his noise machine and walked away. The screaming began. At this point I wanted to make sure that he knew he wasn't alone so after five minutes I went back in. I didn't talk to him but instead shooshed him, patted his belly and gave him his discarded lovey. Once calm, I left. More screaming. This time I stretched my time away to ten minutes. Once again I went and soothed him without picking him up or talking to him. Once sufficiently calm I left the room. He immediately started crying and I started watching the clock again, waiting for the next ten minutes to pass (a little secret - wine helps). Again I made my way back into his room. I believe he was pretty hysterical at this point and it took a long time to calm him down, but I could see he was winding down. He desperately wanted to sleep he just couldn't quite figure out how. When I put my hands on his chest his eyes would start to droop but they immediately popped open when he realized he was falling asleep. Again I left and this time I stretched the interval to fifteen minutes. This went on for about an hour before he finally gave in and fell asleep.

I would love to say that that was it and he then miraculously slept through the night blah blah blah. No such luck. He woke up an hour later and I had to do it all again, but this time it only took twenty minutes. After which he slept for four whole hours. That night he woke up once and we had to do the CIO process again for about forty-five minutes. Then, after that he woke two more times but miraculously put himself back to bed within a matter of minutes. Overall the night was very difficult. After he first fell asleep I cried. I mean I really cried. Like sobs in the bathroom so Husband wouldn't see/hear. But, the night also had a few successes, like putting himself back to bed. I never in a million years would have imagined that happening on night one. Also, we didn't need to nurse at all. Amazing.

*side note - if you go from nursing all night long to night weaning, remember to pump a couple of times at night. Otherwise you may get some nasty plugged ducts or even worse, mastitis. Lesson learned.

Night 1 v 2.0: Unfortunately the morning after our first night little G-Man woke up very sick. Right then and there I almost gave up, thinking I had broken my baby with the crying. The doctor reassured me that I had done no such thing and that it was purely a coincidence. Unfortunately, due to his illness I couldn't continue the routine that night. Ferber specifically says not to CIO when sick or in pain (teething, ear ache, etc.). So once again G returned to bed with me for a night of marathon nursing. Oh well. The next day however, G was feeling a hundred times better so we started again. Something that I found really helped ease my mind was having a video monitor. At any time during the process I could easily check in on him without disturbing him. I could see for myself that he wasn't crying from pain and that he wasn't throwing up, he was fine. Oh and did I mention the wine? That helped too. Basically this night was just like the first, but a little shorter. I went in after five minutes, then ten, then fifteen and then fifteen again and that was it. He fell asleep. It's interesting watching him learn how to fall asleep on his own. There were a couple of times during his naps that day and that night where he fell asleep sitting up, which if you have any sort of sense of humor is actually kind of comical.

Night 2 (or 3 depending on how you look at it): Again I followed the pattern of stretching out the intervals, but this time I skipped the five minute interval and went straight to ten minutes, then we did a fifteen minute and then a twenty minute interval. It was hard but I could tell it was working. His crying was less intense, more like complaining really. After the last stretch, he quietly put himself down on his tummy, popped his little diaper butt up into the air and fell asleep. That night he woke maybe two times and each time he put himself back to bed. Pure amazingness.

Night 3: We went through our bedtime routine, I nursed him then stood in the dark with him singing until I could feel him relax. I put him in his crib and said "night night" then walked away. He was quiet. Luckily I have a handy dandy video monitor. Turning it on, I found him quietly playing with his glow worm. A few minutes later he let out a little cry and I prepared myself to start up the ten minute timer in my head. But that was it. He cried for maybe a minute and then he was out. For. The. Whole. Night. He slept, completely undisturbed for ten hours.

Since then we have had good nights, followed by amazing nights. In fact, for the last three nights in a row, I have put him in his crib, he fell asleep without crying and he woke up twelve hours later, a happy and well-rested baby. It's like a whole new world. I am like a band new woman and a much better mom because of it. As much as I never wanted to hurt my child by letting him cry, this has been our life saver. I spent the first five or so months of G's life struggling with a mild form of post-partum depression and although I felt like I had been coming out of it the last few months, the sleep issue kept dragging me back. I can't even begin to describe the kind of strain having a non-sleeping child can put on you both mentally and physically. So, while I know that Ferber and CIO is so completely looked down upon (at least in my neck of the woods it is) I know that I did the best thing for me, for my baby and even for my husband and our marriage. Judge if you must, but my baby sleeps through the night and so do I!