As anyone reading this blog regularly knows, our little Gypsy hasn't been a great sleeper and has basically insisted on sleeping on us the vast majority of the time. We have accommodated her and I even trained myself to sleep on my back on the COUCH in order to do so - but I know this is NOT smart for a multitude of reasons. Namely:
- Anything can happen when you're sleeping and I can't be entirely sure she's protected. She could shift her position and wind up smothering herself. We all know this would be very, very bad. I don't need to go into great detail.
- I don't sleep well this way. In fact, I'm not entirely convinced I do any real sleeping at all this way. No sleep = crankypants.
- It isn't good for her. I mean come on - she's got to learn to sleep like a normal person at some point. At first we resorted to a swing - a lovely rock n' play that everyone raves about. It worked - kind-of... in that she'd sleep in it for short stints, (maybe an hour - two if we were really lucky), then wake up and demand the chest again. Again, not good for her and not that great for us either.
- My husband and I hadn't slept in the same bed for three months. THREE MONTHS. We slept in shifts. One of us was always on the couch with her and the other in bed. After a while, I realized it was easier for me to just stay on the couch most of the night. My left shoulder started hurting... a lot. It sucked. Again, no bueno.
At her two-month well visit, our pediatrician told us to begin sleep training. We looked at her like she had just asked us to sacrifice our baby to the devil. No way! Too young. I asked my Facebook friends what to do and got a mixed bag of responses. Many condoned sleep training. Others didn't. It was totally helpful and totally not because at the end of the day - I realized we had to do what was right for us and our daughter - because when you're a parent - you have to turn off the noise of everyone else's opinions and make your own.
That isn't to say the info I received wasn't helpful. It TOTALLY was. In fact, I did a ton of reading based on those recommendations and everyone else's experiences and ultimately, it helped me come to a conclusion with my husband one full month later:
It was time to sleep train this little girl.
And so we started. In fact, I believe we've now been on this quest for 9 days. Today will be day 10.
Good thing too, because we started about a few days shy of her three-month "birthday" and had just received an email from our pediatrician warning us about the failure to sleep train by three months. It was incredibly, incredibly ominous. Honestly, it sent a shiver down my spine.
Ultimately, we went with some type of sleep training that isn't quite as harsh, (I guess), which was more or less the Ferberization method.
Don't get me wrong - this method is still no picnic. You put your baby in the crib after a bedtime routine - and walk away - letting him/her cry it out for small increments at first - and gradually increasing over the next handful of days. You can go in and comfort your little one during those 5, 10, 15 min. increments but cannot take them out of the crib. As any mother will tell you - this goes against every cell of your being. Your instincts and hormones are BEGGING you to free your child from the confines of its baby jail. BEGGING. It is torture.
Anyway, I quickly realized that the so-called 'comforting' your baby didn't do much in the way of comforting - at least not with ours. Sometimes, it would make her cry louder and really dish out some of those desperate cries - the ones that brought me to tears. After about 3 or 4 days - we decided to truly let her just... cry it out.
And it worked! Each day, the crying lessened in both intensity and duration to the point where she would barely cry on-and-off for a little while each night. Then she regressed and had a really bad night of almost non-stop crying for two hours. I texted a smart girlfriend about it. She offered sage advice and told me to stick with it. I did - and cried with my daughter - but in the next room where she couldn't see or hear me. After a week + of this, I wasn't giving up. Last night was a huge improvement again. Not only is she not crying that much - but she's now regularly napping in her crib too - without much of a fuss. In fact, there was only a brief 10 minute crying fuss fest last night when we put her to bed - and then she slept pretty consistently until 3:00 a.m. - when she woke up for a feeding. Then she went right back to sleep - in her crib - without any fussing whatsoever. And then she did that again at 6:00 - slept pretty soundly until around 10 a.m.
It was AMAZING.
So, I guess this opens me up to all kinds of criticism for being a heartless parent - for ignoring the needs of my child and putting my own needs first. Well, trust me when I tell you naysayers - Gypsy is sleeping better, is noticeably even happier, much more active and playful and we are MUCH better parents, because we are SLEEPING. Sleep is precious. I have never been a fan of it, until it was pretty much taken away from me for nearly three months. Now I have a brand new appreciation for it entirely.
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