Sun 12 Aug 2007
Sleep Training Sucks
Posted by Liza under Personal
But it’s better than sleep deprivation, for all involved.
Yeah, this weekend we started working on falling asleep by yourself for your nap. This works at school, but for some reason we’ve never managed it at home.
We’re doing the check on him after 3, 5, 7, 10, 10…. minute intervals. Yesterday that’s how many it took at naptime, we didn’t try it at bedtime we’re still nursing down.
Today at naptime, he fell asleep around 8 or 9 minutes into the first 10 minute interval.
Right now, we’re 3 minutes into the 7 minute interval at bedtime.
Yeah, we’re still nursing down, only he popped up again after being sound asleep when I put him down after ~45 minutes of nursing. And I just didn’t have another half hour of nursing in me.
Listening to him sob “Mommy, Mommy, aaaaaah, Mommy, Mommy, pause, Moooooo-mmmmmmeeeeeee, I WANT MOMMY!” is miserable, but I know he needs to learn to fall asleep other than in my lap.
Remind me of that, ok?
August 13th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Yes, sleep training does suck! We are currently doing this with our nearly 14 month old. Not only was I having to nurse him to sleep, but he would wake in the night an I would basically be there for the all-night-snack-a-thon. It was keeping me awake so much that we had to put a stop to it. So, I cut him off from bedtime and nighttime nursing cold turkey–and the pacifier too. He did remarkably well. The first night was awful. We used the “sleep lady’s” technique. You start off next to the crib, then go to the middle of the room, then the door, then finally the out of the room and come back every 5 minutes. In the middle of this “training” we moved him into the same bedroom as our older son–wow am I rambling. We just recently moved and up until this point they were sharing a room. Once at the new house they had their own rooms. Max was having a really hard time being in his bedroom alone, so per his request, we moved them together. Cooper has since gone down for bed in his crib pretty well. Once he wakes in the morning, we have a marathon nursing session and usually one around dinner time. Anyway, good luck with your sleep training. It can be so hard!
August 13th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Oh Liza…this is hard. I remember when we were having a hard time getting Babboo to sleep through the night and trying the whole “cry it out”…just like you are doing. What finally worked for us was NOT checking on him at all. It worked, but it took 45 minutes of him crying.
45 minutes is like a knife to the heart.
But let me tell you…our entire family is much happier now that we all it all figured out. It was worth it.
And Babboo still loves me and Noah will still love you!!
August 13th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
We had to go the “not checking on [her] at all” route too. What I found out is that my daughter needed a little time at the end of the day by herself to wind down. Even after we sleep-trained, she rolls around in her crib for 20 minutes or so kicking her feet and just generally getting comfortable. Which I’ll take over screaming-it-out anyday. Good luck. This part is the worst