Are My Eyes Closed?
As I type, the neighbor's gardener is edging the lawn right outside Caches' window. He is asleep, for now, so I am shifting my attention back and forth between praying to the video monitor that he stays asleep and attempting to write a coherent blog post for the possible 4 people who are sticking with me and still reading.
I would be lying if I told you Caches' sleep hasn't improved, but my pants would be completely on fire if I told you that I was pleased with his sleeping habits, waking bright eyed and bushy tailed. I'm still rising black eyed and knotted pony tail. You see, in addition to his poor night sleep and wakings, Caches is a cat napper, between twenty and thirty minutes, who likes to throw in a random hour long nap about once a week just to fuck with me. And the gardener woke him up....
Where was I? Oh yes, the baby messing with my head.
I know I talked a little bit about doing a very modified version of cry it out with him a few months ago and gradually, VERY gradually it has worked. The first step was getting him to stay asleep longer than thirty minutes all through the night which meant he needed to learn that waking up in his room was not scary, and that he in fact COULD simply roll over and go back to sleep without screaming as though his mattress were covered in hot coals. This meant no more nursing him back to sleep. The 24 hour boobie bar was CLOSED!
Now, I know he is a growing boy and still needs to nurse throughout the night so it's not like I cut him off completely, in fact he still eats 2-3 times through the night depending on his bedtime or how desperately I want 30 more minutes of sleep come 6 am, it's just now he has to wait about 4 hours between feedings. If he wakes up before 4 hours have passed he gets love but no boob! We started with immediately rushing to his room and picking him up and comforting him, then we waited a bit before going to him, then we stopped picking him up, then we started waiting a little bit longer still, and finally we let him figure it out. Evey man for himself or something like that.
The general rule now is that if he hasn't put himself back to sleep within ten minutes then he gets "help" in doing so. Most nights he only wakes up to eat and maybe a few 1-5 minute sporadic screaming fits but there are still the occasional every hour or two torturous WHY BABY, WHY!!!??? kind of nights. And so I have come to accept, or maybe concede, actually I've just flat given up on the thought of him quietly fussing a bit or even just QUIETLY putting himself to sleep. Caches doesn't do in between. He is either asleep or SCREAMING the kind of scream that has the neighbors calling the cops.
I have spent hours, and I mean HOURS watching the video monitor and I'm telling you it is like a switch. Baby peacefully asleep, awe, so sweet, I'll just close my eyes and go back to sleep myself. BAM, head pops up and KABOOM, like a bomb exploding in a fit he's screaming. Then, just as quickly he is back asleep. Freakin' weirdo!
I suppose I should probably stop calling my kid weird and staying things like, "normal babies do X Y Z, but my baby does C R Y." Pretty sure in all my years studying psychology that a little thing called self fulfilling prophecy may come to be a problem. Anyway, long story short, he sleeps SO much better than he used to and I can only hope that it continues to improve until one day my baby is sleeping all night long. You know, when he's 15.
I would be lying if I told you Caches' sleep hasn't improved, but my pants would be completely on fire if I told you that I was pleased with his sleeping habits, waking bright eyed and bushy tailed. I'm still rising black eyed and knotted pony tail. You see, in addition to his poor night sleep and wakings, Caches is a cat napper, between twenty and thirty minutes, who likes to throw in a random hour long nap about once a week just to fuck with me. And the gardener woke him up....
Where was I? Oh yes, the baby messing with my head.
I know I talked a little bit about doing a very modified version of cry it out with him a few months ago and gradually, VERY gradually it has worked. The first step was getting him to stay asleep longer than thirty minutes all through the night which meant he needed to learn that waking up in his room was not scary, and that he in fact COULD simply roll over and go back to sleep without screaming as though his mattress were covered in hot coals. This meant no more nursing him back to sleep. The 24 hour boobie bar was CLOSED!
Now, I know he is a growing boy and still needs to nurse throughout the night so it's not like I cut him off completely, in fact he still eats 2-3 times through the night depending on his bedtime or how desperately I want 30 more minutes of sleep come 6 am, it's just now he has to wait about 4 hours between feedings. If he wakes up before 4 hours have passed he gets love but no boob! We started with immediately rushing to his room and picking him up and comforting him, then we waited a bit before going to him, then we stopped picking him up, then we started waiting a little bit longer still, and finally we let him figure it out. Evey man for himself or something like that.
The general rule now is that if he hasn't put himself back to sleep within ten minutes then he gets "help" in doing so. Most nights he only wakes up to eat and maybe a few 1-5 minute sporadic screaming fits but there are still the occasional every hour or two torturous WHY BABY, WHY!!!??? kind of nights. And so I have come to accept, or maybe concede, actually I've just flat given up on the thought of him quietly fussing a bit or even just QUIETLY putting himself to sleep. Caches doesn't do in between. He is either asleep or SCREAMING the kind of scream that has the neighbors calling the cops.
I have spent hours, and I mean HOURS watching the video monitor and I'm telling you it is like a switch. Baby peacefully asleep, awe, so sweet, I'll just close my eyes and go back to sleep myself. BAM, head pops up and KABOOM, like a bomb exploding in a fit he's screaming. Then, just as quickly he is back asleep. Freakin' weirdo!
I suppose I should probably stop calling my kid weird and staying things like, "normal babies do X Y Z, but my baby does C R Y." Pretty sure in all my years studying psychology that a little thing called self fulfilling prophecy may come to be a problem. Anyway, long story short, he sleeps SO much better than he used to and I can only hope that it continues to improve until one day my baby is sleeping all night long. You know, when he's 15.
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