Nursing Your Kids

For those of you keeping track, things have gotten better in the sleep department. By night four of our return to sleep training Sam cried at the gate for a little over 15 minutes- after 10 we put him back into bed and he promptly climbed out and returned to crying at the gate. But after a few short minutes more he climbed back into bed and went to sleep. By night five, he only cried for about 10 minutes. He was quiet before we returned to his room. Each night after I held my breath, waiting, and each night he was in bed before we had to put him back in. Last night, his cries weren’t even cries at all. They were just sad, sweet little requests. “Dada? Dada carry. Dada. Mama. Mama, take the gate off.” He was asleep before the ten minutes were up.

He isn’t sleeping through the night every night, but he’s sleeping through most nights and he doesn’t sound as angry when he wakes. He’s been sleeping a bit later in the morning too, which is just lovely for me since I love to sleep in. I think he’s finally starting to fully catch up on sleep. The cycle of sleep deprivation is coming to an end. For now, anyway.

This type of sleep training was a last resort for us. I don’t like letting Sam cry and aside from a few sleep deprived moments of my own, when I let him cry because I was just to frustrated with the crying to deal with him, we never let him cry until he was over a year old. Even after that we tried most other methods of getting him to sleep before we’d resort to letting him cry (or self-soothe, as the “experts” call it.) But bedtime routines weren’t working, rocking wasn’t working, staying with him while he fell asleep wasn’t working and co-sleeping wasn’t working. He was sleep deprived and we were miserable. We took a chance, tried something I didn’t want to try, and so far it’s working.

Knowing Sam and his sleep cycles, I’m sure it won’t last forever and I fully expect a return to sleep hell once the new baby arrives, but until then it’s nice to have two hours in the evening when we’re not arguing with a toddler about bedtime and we can finally watch the Netflix movies that have been collecting dust on our shelves.