A Lesson in Tough Love

warning: this is a long post meant for your reading pleasure but also as a documentation for myself, which is why there is probably more detail than you are interested in.

Around the time Isaiah turned 8 months his perfect child sleeping patterns began to change. By "perfect child sleeping patterns" I mean I could rock him to sleep or lay with him on our bed until he fell asleep and then easily transfer him to his crib where he would sleep for 10-12 hours and awake the next morning happy as a clam. It was like having my cake and eating it too because I never had to let him cry and I could cuddle him all I wanted and still get a full night's rest. So when suddenly he began waking in the middle of the night, sitting up with arms wide open and up to be held, what else could I do but pick him up? This was right around the same time we noticed his first and then second tooth, which I happily blamed his sleep trouble on. And then he got his first yucky cold... the "reasons" for sleep trouble can be never ending.

Fast forward one month: Isaiah is ruling our evenings and nights and has become the King of our king sized bed. Not only that but naps have become few and far between and, as a result, his new nickname has become Mr. Crabby Pants.

At our 9 month appointment our pediatrician was kind enough to give us a "prescription" for getting his sleep patterns back on track. Which really meant "LET HIM CRY". He needs to learn to put himself to sleep.

Let me digress for a moment, back to when I didn't have kids but thought I knew some stuff: I knew that letting babies "cry it out" was a good way to teach good sleeping habits and ultimately good for both baby and parent. I honestly couldn't see why something like that could be so hard. Crying is just something that babies do because they don't have any other way to communicate. WHAT I DIDN'T KNOW is that listening to your own baby cry, even when you know all the logical things I just stated above, can be utterly heart wrenching.

Anyway, back to the 9 month appointment. I took the booklet from the doctor and read it at home and decided that I would make an attempt over Thanksgiving week when I'd be home from work (but really it was just a good excuse to put it off). You see, Will and I didn't really mind sleeping with Isaiah. He's cute, cuddly, and hard to deny, and we still got sleep as long as he was with us.

By chance, last Thursday night, when I attempted to put Isaiah in his crib, he didn't cry. He just laid there. So I thought to myself maybe this is my chance for a smooth transition? It wasn't. He started crying, so I sat on the floor next to his crib to comfort him (they say that's a technique that can work). Once he started crying and I had made the decision to let him, I felt like I had reached a point of no return. If I picked him up it would validate the crying and the time I had just spent would have been for nothing. After about an hour and a half I decided that maybe I was making it worse by being in the room, so I said goodnight and left. I think it took about another 30 minutes before he fell asleep. There was another bout of crying around 2am that lasted maybe 40 minutes. He woke up happy in the morning. And that was that. I had started SLEEP TRAINING.

Day 2: We had a good day. PEPS and spending time with Grandma and Grandpa Murray. I was DREADING bedtime.  Bedtime came; bottle, rocking chair cuddling, into the crib, 20 minutes of crying! YAY ! A vast improvement.

Day 3: Two naps both close to 2 hours each, minimal crying before falling asleep. Bedtime came, less than 5 minutes of crying. DOUBLE YAY!

Day 4: Two long naps, no crying before falling asleep. Bedtime came, no crying, asleep within a minute!!! TRIPLE YAY!

Here's the thing. Remember when I said I didn't mind that Isaiah was sleeping with us? Well, I didn't realize exactly how much of my time and energy was being spent solely on Isaiah's sleep habits until I got daytime naps and my evenings and nights back. This might sound silly but I feel like I'm getting my old self back again, I can do stuff again, I can accomplish things. I was truly on a huge high all weekend long. I accomplished this and it wasn't hard (it's like childbirth, once you are on the other side, you don't remember). AND I now have my happy baby back again, Mr. Crabby Pants has left the building.

So who's lesson in tough love was this anyway?