Monday, September 9, 2013

Sleep Training

I know this can be a sensitive topic and I've hesitated to post about it, but thoughts about sleep having been consuming many of my waking hours (of which there have been many) lately, so this is really just a ramble of what's been running through my head.

So... sleep.


I really hoped that Sprout would sleep train on her own.  I know that's naive, but it didn't stop me from hoping.  She really is quite an "easy" baby so it would have been nice if that carried over to sleep.  ...Not that she's a "bad" sleeper.  We've gotten into a fairly reasonable routine of bedtime at about 7:30pm, followed by a few minutes of rocking whenever she wakes up between then and 10:30pm-ish when we go into bed, and then nursing every three hours or so throughout the night until maybe 5:00am where she more or less stays on the boob until she gets up at 6:00 or 6:30am.  She usually doesn't cry, just fusses until she is nursed and then goes back down to sleep with minimal rocking, if any.  Fairly reasonable, right?  Except that she's still waking up to nurse every three hours.  Which means I'm only sleeping about two and half hours at a time.  And that can catch up with a girl, you know?  Anyway, all this to say that we're getting to the point where we are starting to think about sleep training.

But here's the thing, even the thought of several more months of interrupted sleep isn't enough for me to feel guiltless in letting Ms. Sprout cry, and from what I know, even the most gentle sleep training methods usually involve tears.

Back when The Bean was wee, we did a modified sort of Cry It Out.  He never cried very long, but still, it was hard.  (Jen wrote about it in this blog post.)  Read that with the knowledge that Jen was the "strong" one.  I fought back tears of my own while she reassured me that it really was going to be best for all of us.  After a few days he was going down without any fuss.  I even remember a period following his sleep training where he would happily give us goodnight kisses and then roll over and close his eyes before we shut the bedroom door.  (He's currently in a stage where he procrastinates like no one's business at bedtime, and occasionally will tell us, "I'm going to cry." when we are getting ready to leave the room.  Yet I don't struggle with this in the same way as I did/do with having a baby cry.)

So you think we'd be able to do the same thing with Sprout knowing that the results are likely to be positive.  Or we could do the other CIO method which I would describe as more of a "back away slowly" method than a "go in and check on them often" method.  But still, when I hear her fuss and know that I could go in and comfort her and I'm not, I get itchy.

She is still just a little baby.  She hasn't even been in this world as long as she was inside me (though that won't be true for much longer).  She finds joy in things like holding her hands under a running stream of water, bouncing, grabbing the cat's fur, and blowing raspberries.  She finds comfort in closeness.  Who are we to deny her that?  When I pick her up to rock her and she lets out a big sigh and puts her little dimply-knuckled hand on my chest before letting her heavy eyelids close I melt.  I am not ready to let that go yet.

Plus, any time we've started thinking about sleep training something seems to come up that makes it feel like a Really Bad Idea.  She has a cold.  She's learning to crawl.  We're going on a trip.  She's figured out how to get out of her swaddle (surely one change to the sleep routine at a time is enough!).   She's teething.  She's learning to cruise.


Still, at 2:30am it's dark and hard to see those dimply little knuckles and feel quite as nostalgic about rocking her to sleep, so maybe one day soon we'll decide it's time to give sleep training a go.

Any tips on how to do it without either baby or Mama crying are welcome!

26 comments:

  1. Ian didn't start sleeping through the night until he was about 9 months old. We followed cues like he wasn't finishing his middle of the night bottle which told us he didn't need to eat in the night anymore. We started cutting out the bedtime bottle but we also had a rule that we'd wait a couple of minutes before going in to see if he'd soothe himself. If not we would go in but try to do anything but pick him up (unless he needed to be changed.) We would sing, rub his back, hold his hand. It was exhausting but it did work. He learned to go back to sleep. The biggest thing, I think, is giving them a few minutes to see if they'll soothe themselves. Don't go running as soon as you hear her. We didn't wait very long but it did help us realize he could settle himself sometimes (especially after we'd been sleep training for a while.)

    Speaking of night wakings, Ian has been up the last to nights with what seems to be growing pains. Tonight he was screaming and crying and couldn't keep his legs still. This is new to us. Poor guy.

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  2. Sleep training IS a sensitive topic. I am an open supporter of it though. It is hard to think of them as "needing you" and you not being there, no matter how brief the moments are.

    We sleep trained with Little Monster and we will sleep train with Boo in the next couple of months. Most research indicates that once a child hits 6 months old, any "change" is harder to accomplish and so following that rule, we switched to solid foods and sleep trained with LM prior to him hitting 6 months and it worked very well...I am hoping the same rings true for baby girl but I also notice that she is a bit more clingy than he ever was at this age.

    So many people will say, oh that is just too young and they are not old enough to get it and blah blah blah. I hear their opinions, and however they choose to parent is fine, but I can't help but notice that these are usually the same people who complain about their 2, 3, and even 4 year old still having sleep issues. Yes, they are babies. Babies that do not always know when and how they should be sleeping. Some babies need a parent to guide them on how. I look at it as just a part of parenting, same as supporting them as they learn to talk and walk.

    I think the key is to be consistent. Which I am sure you discovered with Bean. We did a similar modified CIO out method, more along the lines of the Ferber Method, but in the end it did involve a couple nights of tears and yes it was heart wrenching but with a purpose. I know that probably does not help at all, but I look at it like a tired and miserable Mommy/Mama is no good for for anyone. I am sure when Sprout gets in a better sleep routine then you all will be much happier and well rested and able to enjoy all those moments of dimply little knuckles and magnificent milestones.

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  3. i wish there was a way to do it with nobody crying, but i don't think anybody's discovered it yet! good luck, be strong and remember that when you're all ready, it'll be so welcome for all of you to get more uninterrupted sleep.

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  4. What a hard place to be in! I'm there with you on the prolonged sleep depravation. I often wonder if it wouldn't be better for my baby to cry for a few hours for a few days than to have a consistently exhausted and cranky mommy...it's a hard, hard place to be.

    You might have already read the No Cry Sleep Solution book by Elizabeth Pantley, but each time I revisit it I find something else that makes things seem better for us.

    Whatever you choose will be the right choice for your family!

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    1. I read it when The Bean was little, but it might be worth looking at again. Thanks for the suggestion.

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  5. We also don't feel like CIO is for us and could never do that. Riley had to be rocked to sleep as a baby and woke during the night. When we had enough, we used the Pick Up, Put Down method. Basically you put the baby down and if the baby can stand, you wait until she's standing. If she can sit, you wait until she's sitting. If she can't do either, you just wait for her to be crying. In all cases, if they're crying, you pick them up and settle them until they stop and then immediately put them down. If they're older and sitting/standing, you lay them back down without picking them up. So essentially you're saying "I'm here but you are not being rocked to sleep--you will go to sleep on your own." You never let them actually feel alone or like you're not there to sooth them but you're teaching them that they must go to sleep alone. This worked really well for Riley although that first night I think I must have put her down about 50 times.

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    1. I hadn't heard of that one. Thanks for the suggestion.

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  6. I'm no expert, since my son is only a month older than Sprout. But here's my input for what it is worth.

    My son has been basically sleeping through the night for a couple of months -- about 3x a week he wakes up once, but just needs a bit of comfort (and, I admit it, his pacifier) and is back to sleep in a few minutes. Ever once in a while he wakes up twice, but usually that is when we've had an especially busy day or he went to bed later than usual.

    My advice would be to first work on those middle of the night feedings. She is old enough to sleep through from her evening feeding until her morning one. If you can drop those and get to where you are just comforting her when she wakes, that's a good first step (IMHO).

    Right now, my son nurses around 6:30 - 7 pm as the first step of our nighttime routine, and then wakes about 5 or 6 in the morning and nurses within about 20 minutes of waking.

    After we got those feedings dropped, we did a sort of cry it out. When he would wake in the night we would wait 5 minutes before we went in to comfort him. It only took about a week of that before he got to the point he is at now. We don't wait the five minutes anymore, and about 1/3 of the time he falls back asleep before one of us manages to get up and to his room.

    Good luck, whatever you try to do! I would be basically non-functioning if I was still getting up as much as you are, so I know you must be exhausted.

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    1. I wish Sprout would take a pacifier! The Bean did and I really do think it made eliminating the night feedings easier, as sometimes he just wanted the comfort of sucking. I imagine some of Sprout's middle of the night feeds are solely comfort feeds vs. hunger feeds.

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  7. We sleep trained Juju pretty early, at 4 months. I think it's one of those things that just gets harder with time, and even though Juju was never a bad sleeper by 3-4 months C and I were pretty exhausted. We let her cry 5 minutes before going into her room for one week, then 10, and after that she was pretty much trained. It was hard but so so so so so so worth it for us. I would just lie there and watch the clock and almost every time she would settle before hitting the 5 minute mark. Good luck!

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  8. Oh, sweetie. Cry it out is so stressful for mamas. I was not very strong either. When we finally decided to do it, Punky was about the same age as your Sprout. Our pediatrician recommended it. We had moved her into her own room and she transitioned to that just fine. A few days later, we decided to 'train' her. So, the rule was, at 8:30PM we lay her down, give her lots of kisses and loving, change her diaper and then give her a drink and shut the door. Neither of us were allowed to go in there until the morning. (Like sun was up morning). That first night sucked and I literally sat outside her bedroom door crying and crying while she screaming in there. But, she slept all night and since then she's been a sleeping champ. She is on a sleep routine that people are astonished by. She sleeps from 8:30-9PM until 9AM. She takes a nap around 12-2PM and that's it. She knows when nap is, she knows when bedtime is and she will tell us. It's brilliant and literally took us one night of hard crying for baby and Mommy. It sucks and I never thought I would do it, but now, I swear by it and I don't regret it not one bit.

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  9. Off topic, but that top photo of Sprout is breathtaking!

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  10. Hey!
    It really IS a sensitive topic an I have to say that I'm no friend of trainings of anykind. They would not work for our daughter anyway ;-)
    She slept through the night the first time when she was 18 months old...
    If you consider to sleep-train the Sprout, please take a look at Pantley's no-cry sleep solution! Maybe it will work for you!
    Hugs from Germany

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    1. Danke, Frau Nilsson. We have that book... I'm going to look at it again.

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  11. I'm no expert, but I wanted to say thanks for posting this. It's definitely a sensitive topic but it doesn't have to be and in the meantime, it feels good to know we're not alone in our struggles!

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  12. It is a sensitive topic and I would never consider sleep training. Charlie still wakes up at least once a night at 3 years old and Rosa sleeps through every single night since she was 9 months old. I parented them the same way in regards to sleep but they are very different.
    If the sleep thing is really getting to you though, you are quite right to try some new things out.
    Good luck with it ;)

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  13. Sleep is so so so hard.

    The thing that worked best for my little guys (well one in particular as the other is one of those weird babies you read about that just... sleep...) was to night week. Granted, we waited until close to a year, but it really made all the difference.

    I hope, whatever the method, that more sleep is available for all parties soon!

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    1. I know that some of her mid-night nursing sessions are just for comfort, but since she still isn't eating a lot of solids I'm hesitant to try to night wean her completely. Were your guys eating solids when you started?

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  14. Clearly, I should not have posted about my son's pretty great sleep the other day, because now we have had three bad nights!

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    1. Oh Valerie! Isn't that the way it is?

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    2. Indeed! But he's got two new teeth to show for it!

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    3. Haha! Well, maybe Sprout has four or five coming in then. ;)

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  15. This post has been an earworm in my thoughts all week. I know that CIO is not for me/our family, but the cumulative sleep loss makes it hard to be the best mommy I can be during the day sometimes.

    I feel like babies don't have wants so much as needs. I also feel like it sucks to have a baby with such high needs as I do right now. My needs weren't nurtured as a child, though, so I certainly won't pay that back onto my own children. I feel like, even if he does this until he's 2 (and I don't think he will, because there are glimmers of awesome sleep), I'm already a quarter of the way through it. It feels like a blink, and I'm still in the midst of it. He won't need me forever, and I have personal knowledge already of what it feels like when your kids don't even want you anymore.

    You have my warmest wishes for whatever you decide to do, and then however you change and adapt that as things evolve. Because that's the absolute best any of us can do.

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    1. Thanks for that perspective. (And kids go through stages, I'm sure your little guy still needs/wants you very much.)

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