In previous monthly updates, I said that I didn’t even want to talk about sleep. It was just too bad, and I didn’t want to even type it all out.
Now, things are much better.
When Johnny was a newborn, he would not sleep unless he was being held or on my chest. It was a scary, sleep-deprived period of time for me. We got him a swing when he was two weeks old and he would sleep some in there, but not always.
Being new parents, we really didn’t know what to do.
I sleepily flipped through Baby Wise at the recommendation of some folks, and I just didn’t like what I saw. I didn’t feel comfortable with sleep training a baby who was barely two months old, even though the book said that was an appropriate age.
I tried the Baby Wise schedule for a few days (we didn’t follow it perfectly at all) and I found that when I tried to stick with a schedule and the clock, I would give the schedule more weight than my baby’s cues. I was starting to tune out his cues if it wasn’t time for him to need something. Not good.
I got rid of that book and picked up the No-Cry Sleep Solution and a few other gentler sleep books. They were sort of helpful, but we didn’t have any results.
Johnny just had amazing radar and would wake up from a deep sleep if I got too far away from him. Most of the time, he wouldn’t sleep unless he was touching me. Or, he wouldn’t sleep for long if I left the room. It was exhausting.
But, little babies have needs. They have a strong need to have physical contact with their mom. Some babies, the need isn’t so urgent. With my son, it was critical in those early months.
He had a need, he knew how to express it, and I couldn’t bear to deny him of that.
Because really, what kind of message would that send? And besides, he needed to be held just like I need air to breathe. I can’t imagine how depriving him of that would affect him.
So I rocked, nursed, and cuddled with him until he fell asleep. Sometimes I’d be able to move him to his crib, sometimes I stayed put, too exhausted to do anything else. We mostly co-slept. And for the most part, as long as I went along with what Johnny wanted, it was working. We were getting sleep. That’s what matters, right?
Unfortunately, some folks (and the pediatricians, ugh) thought he was being spoiled. If we didn’t sleep train (i.e. make him cry it out) and sleep in his crib, then he’d still be wanting to sleep in my bed until he was much older. Kind of like the argument that if a baby doesn’t wean young, they’ll nurse until they’re 7. Riiiight.
Anyway, since the pediatrician didn’t have any medical reason why this wasn’t a good arrangement, and since the doc doesn’t live in my apartment and have to listen to Johnny’s crying, I decided to just do what worked for us.
We’d try comforting him and laying him down in his crib. He would wimper, stand up, and scream as if he were on fire. I’d have to leave the place, or take a shower or something while Shane would work with Johnny. It physically hurt me to hear him cry like that and not go hold him.
Sometimes, despite our soothing, rocking, patting, etc. — it would still take an hour (or three!) to get him to fall asleep in his crib. Once that happened, he’d be awake again in an hour. It was rough on all of us.
I knew at that point, if we did try to have him cry it out, and check on him every 5 minutes or so, that he would just scream and keep on screaming. He’d be angry with us and wouldn’t understand that he needed to go to sleep. It wouldn’t work.
He’s gotten older now. Now at nearly a year old, I think he understands the concept of object permanence. He knows that when we leave the room, we’re still nearby even though he can’t see or hear us. He doesn’t have a panic attack when we do leave.
We got him a nightlight, a Glow Worm, and turned on a really loud box fan instead of a quieter fan. Oh, and now that he’s older and mobile, we put a thin pillow in his crib. Pillows should not be used until a baby is older, if at all, and I get that. But the crib mattress is foam and insanely firm. It’s great for newborns and little babies, but it’s about as comfortable as sleeping on a tile floor.
And since Johnny was accustomed to sleeping in an actual bed, this hard thing we were trying to get him to sleep on simply wouldn’t do.
With the nightlight on, fan roaring and pillow there for him, Johnny whines a bit sometimes, but he will lay himself down, get comfortable and fall asleep.
HUGE break through. I think the props have helped, but I also think he’s just now developmentally ready for this. If we did the same thing a few months ago, it would not have worked.
When he wakes up during the night (and yes ma’am, he does) we now have him fuss (but not all-out cry) for a few minutes to see if he’ll go back to sleep or if he needs something. He does put himself back to sleep unassisted now, which is so incredible to me.
Sometimes, he does need something. He once bit his lip and obviously needed comforting. And sometimes, he needs to nurse. I trust that he’ll let us know when he does need something, and since we’re pretty tuned to his cues, we can tell.
He does end up in bed next to me at some point during the night, and soon enough that won’t be the case. I think he’s close, though.
He’s so busy during the day that I do think he makes up for calories he needs by nursing at night.
He sometimes fusses and almost heads toward his crib because he wants to go to sleep.
A few months ago, if you told me he would do this, I don’t know that I would have believed you. And, I would have carried on and put him to sleep in the exact same way. It’s what he needed at the time. He doesn’t need that now. He’s growing into a big boy.
And really, I don’t see what all the fuss is about having the baby sleep independently all night long from such a young age. Yes, it might help the mom get a little more sleep. But they’re little for such an incredibly short time. I don’t need to push him to grow up faster than he’s ready.
Some moms have babies who are really easy sleepers from the get-go. Some are really high-needs when it comes to sleep. I think we all have to do what works best for our babies and our families.
