Why, oh why, does sleep have to be SO difficult in our house??!! That is BY FAR the hardest issue we've dealt with, now with both boys. Sleeping through the night is not the hard part.....at least right now. Grant woke up a lot from 7 to 11 months, and Drew has sporadically woken up at random times.....but for the past week he's been sleeping straight through.
With Grant, I got in the habit of nursing or rocking him to sleep as a baby. This was fine until he started waking up in the middle of the night (at 7 months), and couldn't settle himself back to sleep. So finally at 11 months, I got so sick of it and just let him cry it out for a few nights. And it worked! So this time, I vowed to not rock or nurse Drew to sleep every night, because I didn't want the same thing to happen. And......for a while, I did well.....I'd let him fall asleep in my arms sometimes, but then I'd also just lay him in his crib awake other times. But then I gradually got lazy......after all, it is much easier (in the short term) to lay him down when he's asleep (not having to worry about him crying and waking Grant up, and also just being able to immediately get to work on whatever I want to do during his nap!).
So, in the past week I've really been trying to institute a bedtime/naptime routine (which apparently you're supposed to start at 4-5 months, and he's 7 months old now!). This is SO hard for me. I am not a routine-driven person myself......I love just going with the flow, which I know is not good for little kids! And.....Drew isn't really keen about the idea of having a naptime/bedtime routine, either.....he doesn't care about books or singing songs at this point. He just wants to be nursed to sleep like he's been doing for the past month! So usually he screams and cries until I come back in, and this goes on for a while before he finally gives up. But I am still inconsistent.....I know the sleep training could be over in two days (like with Grant), but sometimes I'll feel so sorry for him if he's been screaming for 15 minutes, so I'll pick him up and let him fall asleep in my arms. As a mom, you just feel so torn about these things....
So anyway, I would love to be one of those moms who puts her kids down for naps and leaves the room, knowing they will go straight to sleep and wake up 2 hours later. As I sat down to write this, both boys were screaming in their rooms (we went to Katy today so they're taking really late naps). Now they have both gone to sleep.....thank you, God!
More tomorrow on our trip to Katy.....blogging every day is more difficult than I expected!
January Lessons
10 years ago
3 comments:
This is somewhat disjointed...sorry!
What worked for us was the 5-10-15-20 minute rule. We'd put John down and if he cried we'd go check on him, for our sake and his. Most of the time we would not pick him up. If we did, we would not sit in the chair, mostly to tell him this was only a comforting thing and he needed to sleep - we meant business. Then if he continued to cry, we'd start the timer for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes if he was till crying, we'd repeat what we had done before, reassuring him he was OK and that it was time for sleep, then we'd leave. If the crying persisted, we'd wait 10 minutes before we went back in, then 15, 20, etc. I think the longest we wever went was a 25 minute interval. Most of the time it took 20 minutes or so before he got it. I felt good that he was OK and he was reassured because I did come back each time, but on my terms, not his. Most of the time we had to use this at night. On rare occassions, when I used this during the day, after 1 hour of fighting, I would get them up. The fighting does neither of you any good. I remember one day, it was so bad he actaully fell asleep in the high chair at dinnner because he hadn't napped well. It's a fine line because if the are overtired they don't sleep as well at night. But fighting with him just STRESSED me out. So, I decided I'd put a limit to it and try to put him down again later. The second time usually worked. Just be strong!!! I wouldn't worry too much about the nap routine being elaborate - ours is change the diaper, turn music on, rocked for no more than one song and get put in bed awake. Don't worry, Drew will get it eventually! But you must be consistent, otherwise they will learn to PLAY you like a violin! He needs to understand that you are in charge. Often I found that John just wanted some comfort. A few minutes (no more than 2) of holding did the trick.
Hang in there!
I'm realizing, too, how much I'll go lax on my 'rules' with child #2 for fear of waking up #1. How do parents with 3, 4, 5 or more do it??? I'm in awe...
Hey there!
If ever you're in Katy again (and know about it ahead of time) please let me know! That's where we are - we could get together and let the boys play... and wear themselves out! :)
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