It Takes 6 Nights Apparently

Night 6 was the winner guys, Night 6!

When my pediatrician recommended we CIO (yes, literally every professional I spoke to recommended CIO, even the crunchy granola attachment parenting SF hippies who at 8 weeks told me I just had to grin and bear it recommended CIO at this point...that's how bad our situation was) she made it seem really simple.  Like there will be crying on Night 1, crying on Night 2 and by Night 3 you'll be all sorted out.

The sleep lady didn't make it sound THAT simple, but she also implied that it would be fairly quick and easy.

This is not quite how it has worked out for us and if you're thinking about CIO please know that it will probably take longer than 3 nights!

Night 5 particularly was ROUGH.  There was several episodes of crying in the middle of the night in which baby was awake for an hour.  This is when you hang your head in shame and think OH GOD IT'S NOT WORKING!

But here we are on Night 6 of Operation Get My Baby to Sleep By Letting Him Scream 2013 and finally FINALLY we had a really good night last night.

The GREATEST IMPROVEMENT is that we're able to get him down for the night in his crib and he'll sleep for 3 hours without a peep.  This takes a bit of crying still but with less and less every night.  He started out with 40 minutes of crying on Night 1 was down to 15 minutes by Night 4 and last night he only cried for 8 minutes and was OUT.

This means that I can actually DO things in the evening, I don't have to rush around in the half an hour he'd sleep in his crib and then go to bed with my baby at 9:30pm anymore!

Hip Hip Horray!

The next best thing is that last night he was also able to put himself back to sleep WITHOUT US for his middle of the night wakings.  He woke twice outside of feed windows and we just watched him on the monitor to see if he was going to get himself all riled up and need some comfort or settle himself...within just a few minutes he was BACK TO SLEEP.

Relief guys, RELIEF.

We did one feed at 12:30am, ONE FEED, this from the baby who used to nurse all night long.  He goes 6 HOURS between feeds at night now...and my boobs have adjusted accordingly.

When he woke at 5:30am we decided that since he did such a good job and he'd skipped his 2nd feed window and there had been basically no crying all night that we'd just bring him into bed with us for morning nursing and snuggles rather than attempt interval comforting even though this was a bit earlier than what I'd prefer to bring him to bed.

He went back to sleep easily with us and up for the day at 8:20am.  This is the one area of sleeping that I feel we really lucked out...we have a late riser.  There have only been a handful of times HIS WHOLE LIFE that he's been up before 7am and his norm is between 7:30-8:30am.  I feared putting him to bed so much earlier with the sleep training would force him awake early but that hasn't been the case!

So...sleep training is working!

Now the next step is US sleeping more as when baby wakes up...even if it's only for 5 minutes...we wake up as well (we're hyper aware of sounds from the monitor right now with this being so new to us) so we're still only getting about 3 hour stretches.

Unfortunately Dom is off today and will be gone for 2 nights, that means I have to do THE WHOLE NIGHT BY MYSELF!

EEK!

If we have more nights like last night that will be no problem but I can't bring myself to believe he'll be so accommodating so I'm gearing up for a rough night.

AND this will be my first time in 6 months sleeping in a bed ALL BY MYSELF!  No husband, no baby...just me...I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep! 

Wish us luck that last night continues to be the norm so that we can move on to Nap Training.

And some proof that my little drool monster bears us no ill will...

 

And On To Night Two of CIO

It still wasn't that bad and he still slept better than he has been but...

...it was a littler rockier.

He did not take long to put down at 7:45pm, maybe 10 minutes of fussing and a bit of crying and then he did his usual trick of only sleeping for half an hour.

Dom calmed him down then he took another 10 minutes to settle back down.

Then he only slept for 10 minutes.

Dom calmed him again and it took another 10 minutes to settle back down.

Then he slept for an hour.

Dom calmed him again and it took 20 minutes to settle back down.

Then he slept for 20 minutes.

At no point was there ever really any HARD crying, it was a lot of fussing and whimpering, then silence, then more fussing and a little crying, then silence, you could hear him struggling to put himself to sleep.

Then finally FINALLY at 10:40pm he really settled and slept for 3 hours.

Then we fed.

Then he slept for 2.5 hours.

Then just like the night before he was awake for an hour between 4:30 and 5:30...ish.

Then he slept for 3.5 hours.

And up for the day at 8:45am (you don't know how happy it makes me that my baby is not an early riser, mama and daddy do not do well with early mornings =)

We made a little boo-boo at 4:30am in that Dom rushed in there before I even woke up and it was in the "feeding window" which means it should have been me in there at letting him nurse.

But after Dom went in there...you sort of have to see him through the cycle, you gotta get him to calm down and fall asleep on his own, you can't introduce the boob in the middle of it otherwise that's reintroducing boob=sleep, which is what we're trying to break.

So...he skipped his 2nd feed, I pumped at 5:45am because my boob was rock hard and making it impossible to sleep and at 7:15am I went and got him even though he was fast asleep I brought him into bed for some nursing and morning snuggles...which sleep lady said was fine to do!

All in all you can see his big chunks of sleep were 3 hours, 2.5 and then 3.5, SO WE'RE DOING BETTER.  I even got to enjoy at least the first 2 stretches of sleep since they started so late in the evening.

But I feel like crap this morning.  

That's right, even with longer stretches of sleep, I'm exhausted.

It is SO SO DIFFERENT to get up and down several times a night rather than just whipping your boob out for a feed.  I can only hope that I get used to this in the same way that I got used to sleeping for 2 hours at a time all night.

But I'm happy to see babykins learning to put himself back to sleep, I think he'll be getting more restful sleep this way rather than always having to resort to the boob.

And with any luck he'll be able to settle earlier in the evening and get an even longer stretch of sleep since I now know he can survive without a feed for 6 hours.

BTW, my boobs hate this new schedule we have going.  They are so used to a baby who feeds all night long that they gear up for it in the evening.  I do the last feed at 7pm and by 9pm I can already feel my boobs getting heavy and full.  I pumped the first night but all I got was 2 oz. even though you could feel how heavy my boob was...for some reason pumping is difficult for me in the evenings!  It really doesn't produce much, takes forever and all I get is foremilk.

Yesterday I skipped pumping in the evening (because all the pump parts were in the dishwasher!) and did it at 5 in the morning instead but just to relieve some pressure, so again I got 2 oz. of foremilk.

What the heck am I going to do with 4 oz. of foremilk?!

Anyway, to those of you whose babes always sleep for longer stretches through the night, do your boobs get used to this?  Do you always wake up engorged?

And we continue on to Night 3 which is supposed to be the "good" night before a possible regression.  Fingers crossed everyone gets some good sleep in tonight!

I Laugh In The Face of CIO

Guys, it wasn't that bad.

I didn't even cry.

And it worked...at least for night one.

I actually want to laugh at myself for how stressed I was yesterday.  

Here's the deal...I left the house.  I was not here for the actual crying it out portion of the evening BUT it only lasted 40 minutes.  

He cries for 40 minutes to be put to sleep on a normal non-CIO sort of evening.  Which I find hard to listen to, but that's the point we were at, so this wasn't that different!

I was expecting him to hit the full 2 hours and have to call the whole thing off...I thought he would be more stubborn!

After he went down for the night IN HIS CRIB it was 8:40pm and he didn't cry again until 10:30pm.  That's right 2 hours in his crib with no mama next to him, no intervention to keep him asleep whatsoever.

That was already amazing, as I came home at 9:30pm so Dom and I actually had some alone time to catch up on some of our shows!

At 10:30 he was easily calmed by Dom going in to talk to him...and he put himself back to sleep.

At 12:30am he woke up for a feed and went back to sleep.

HE THEN STAYED ASLEEP UNTIL HIS NEXT FEED AT 4:15AM!

Yeah...one night and he already got a 4 hour stretch in. I was amazed!

After the second feed I set him back down and he started crying just a few minutes after I left him.  In Dom goes and settles him easily again with words and some light touch...and then baby stayed awake until 5am...and then put himself back to sleep!

At 7am I thought he was up for the day so I went to get him and brought him back to the bed with us for what I thought would be morning snuggles and giggles.  But he had other plans and wanted to nurse...and so did I.  So we nursed for a bit and we all slept for another hour and half together in the big bed.

I'm pretty sure that last part isn't allowed...but we'll see what sleep lady says about it after I update her this morning.

It was not a restful night AT ALL for us as we were up and down a lot and just generally I was sleeping VERY light because the baby was in another room and it was just...different to be listening to him over the monitor rather than having him next to me.

In the morning Baby Jett was exactly the same baby as he was the day before, all smiles and giggles and happy as can be...he seems to bear no ill will towards his parents for making him cry...was I really afraid of this?  Yes, I think I was.  I was convinced he was going to hate us the next day...I guess that's giving my baby adult emotions that he doesn't yet have.

To which I say, Thank God!

I will continue to update everyone as we continue along this path, as there generally seems to be regressions along the way and you know at some point I have to be able to put him down like this myself as the hubs travels again next week!

But for right now after NIGHT ONE of CIO, we're fine.  Baby Jett is fine and Baby Jett SLEPT.

And the saga continues into NIGHT TWO...

When All You're Left With is CIO

Seriously.

The Baby Whisperer ie. the sleep consultant I paid lots of money to get my baby to sleep says that we're there, we're at THAT point. 

The point of desperation when there's no other option...it's time for CIO.

I really didn't want to be here.

I honestly thought that the sleep lady would magically be able to fix the situation for me without the crying.  I REALLY THOUGHT THAT.

I may have been envisioning her with a magic wand.

You know...like this!

 source

It turns out she does not have a magic wand and that no amount of money thrown at this problem is going to make my baby sleep without crying.

Shit.

But you see, we're at the point where baby cries no matter what.  Except for the magic boob technique, ie. nursing, Baby cries to be put to sleep, baby cannot be put to sleep for naps or at night without crying.  IT SUCKS.

Her CIO method is the nice version, the come back into the room to shush and pat and offer kind words (mommy and daddy are right here, but you need to learn how to sleep on your own now etc etc) for 1 minute after letting them cry for increasing intervals, starting with 5, then 10, then 15 and staying at 15 minutes and the whole thing has a cutoff of 2 hours.

I think it's called the Interval Method.

Her method also allows us to not necessarily end co-sleeping but to see where he sleeps best.  He gets thrown in the crib until he learns to sleep (3-7 nights apparently) and then we bring him back in the bed to see if he starts waking up all the time again.  If he doesn't we can keep co-sleeping if we so choose, if he starts waking up to nurse every 2 hours again...it's time for baby to move to the crib.

While I'm terribly displeased about the lack of magic wand, the Baby Whisperer did have some insights into how we got here and was finally able to answer Where Did We Go Wrong?  

The answer?

It can all be contributed to that whole colic/dairy fiasco of weeks 6-12.

I knew that wasn't over and was gonna come back and bite me in the ass.

If you've ever had a baby with colic you know that YOU WILL DO ANYTHING TO GET THEM TO SLEEP, that means LOTS AND LOTS of bouncing and rocking and LOTS AND LOTS of motion in general.  They don't get put down like ever because they'll scream and they get held to sleep a lot because you know...they'll scream.

So, basically, baby got really really used to motion putting him to sleep and even after we got over the colic...we kept bouncing.  We kept rocking.  We kept using motion to put him to sleep.

BECAUSE IT WORKED.

And because we didn't know any better.  FIRST KID ACCIDENTAL PARENTING.  

I knew, I KNEW, that we had to quit using motion to put him to sleep at some point and I was trying to gradually reduce the motion, but Baby Jett was putting up quite a fight and had resorted to screaming at us the moment we tried to start putting him to sleep and basically forced us to continue to bounce him...BECAUSE IT WAS THE ONLY WAY TO GET HIM TO SLEEP.

And now we're here.  Baby Jett has not learned how to put himself to sleep and he has not learned how to put himself BACK to sleep when he wakes up...so he nurses, he nurses himself back to sleep all night long.

And desperation for sleep both for him and for me has led us to CIO.

We start tonight.

I'm leaving the house.

To cry into a glass of wine while my husband tortures our son into sleeping.

Wish us luck.  I know he won't remember a moment of this but my heart is in knots.  

I'll update after the guilt has subsided.

From Bad to Worse...Where Did We Go Wrong?

Just in case anyone thought (like me) that things would just improve on their own...they have not.

I made a sleep log last night after spending AN HOUR AND A HALF bouncing my baby to sleep.

Yes, bouncing my almost 6 month old for hours like he's a newborn...we've regressed so so far.

Would you all like to see my sleep log? 

It's scary...are you ready?

Anyone who's complaining about their baby waking up 3 times a night will immediately start thanking their lucky stars that their baby is ONLY waking up 3 times.

Baby Jett woke up 7 TIMES last night.

And went 2 hours as a MAXIMUM.

Here goes:

10:05:  FINALLY DOWN FOR THE NIGHT AFTER LOTS OF BOUNCING AND FAILED PUT DOWN ATTEMPTS.

11:48pm: Awake!  Nurse.

12:27am: Asleep.

1:03am: Awake!  Try not nursing, try some shushing and patting, all to no avail, give up and nurse.

1:12am: Asleep.

1:41am: Awake!  Nurse for 2 seconds.

1:42am: Asleep.

2:00am:  Awake!  Nurse for 2 seconds.

2:03am:  Asleep.

3:23am:  AWAKE!  Try not nursing again, shushing and patting, nope...back to nursing for 2 SECONDS.

3:25am: Asleep.

4:17am:  AWAKE!  Nurse for 2 seconds...do you see a pattern here?  I think he might need to suck to sleep.

4:18am: Asleep.

5:50am:  AWAKE!  Here I get desperate for him to not wake up for the day so I'm quick to whip out the boob, I don't even bother with other attempts because nursing works and I don't want to get up at 5:50am.

5:54am: Asleep.

7:30am:  Awake for the day.  All smiles and giggles and chatty.

Sounds like a restful night, DOESN'T IT?

We're like a week into nights like this.  I'm a zombie.  And alone, husband is traveling.

You name a sleep trick and I've tried it.  I even put him down in his crib last night (after spending half an hour trying to get him back to sleep after he went down at 7:30pm for A NAP apparently) sleepy and not crying, I went downstairs to watch the last 5 minutes of a show and he BAWLED his little brains out.  He went from happy and content and sleepy to HYSTERICAL in less than 5 minutes.  He spent the next 2 hours fighting sleep and constantly checking on me to make sure I didn't leave him again.

I feel completely lost as to what to do from this point, especially being this tired where I don't have the emotional control to follow through with anything.  I will basically do anything to make him sleep, especially as the day wears on and I get more and more exhausted, even if that means he's back in my arms for naps.  I'm just too tired to deal with the screaming.

Sleep deprivation is no joke.  It's wreaking havoc on all facets on my life.  Dom and I are constantly fighting.  I'm on edge and crying over anything.  And I'm so so skinny, I'm literally wasting away, no matter how much I eat.  And I'm wishing I could give someone my baby and they could bring him back to me when he learns how to sleep.

So we're calling in a professional.

That's right I AM PAYING SOMEONE to fix my baby.  It's bloody expensive...and it better damn well work.

I will keep you all posted!

And just because he's so damn cute even if he won't let me sleep...here's a picture of Baby Jett at his first swimming lesson.

Eating, Eating, Eating, All Night Long

Baby Jett nursed every hour and a half last night.  ALL. NIGHT. LONG.

And it wasn't comfort sucking, like suck, suck, suck, back to sleep, oh no, it was full on nursing sessions.  ALL. NIGHT. LONG.

Is he growing?

Is he teething?

WTF?

I'm exhausted and almost ready to throw in the co-sleeping towel.

But what happens if he goes in the crib?  Is he going to wake up every hour and a half to nurse and I have to GET OUT OF BED AND GO NURSE HIM?!

That sounds like a different kind of hell than the one I'm in...I prefer this one to that one.

Every night I vow to put him to sleep in his crib and see what happens.  And every night I lose my resolve and the baby ends up nursing to sleep next to me.

I know I'm part of the problem but I feel helpless to stop it.

I'm been researching sleep training methods like crazy and as soon as I make a decision on something we have a really good night where he gives me 3 hour stretches...and it's back to square one with me thinking we're going to eventually sleep for longer stretches even if he's next to me.

And then we have nights like last night and I'm back reading everything I can find on CIO and PUPD and basically searching for ANY ALTERNATIVE that let's me get some sleep without having to let my baby cry.

In a nutshell, I'm confused as to what's going on here.  Troublesometots.com says that Baby Jett hasn't learned how to fall asleep without me, but that's not true because I've watched him on the baby monitor wake up from a nap and soothe himself back to sleep.  I've also watched him in bed next to me open his eyes look around, move around a bit and then fall back to sleep...without me doing anything.

So why?  Why doesn't he go more than 3 hours without nursing?  Why does he think he needs to feed every hour some nights?  Why guys WHY???

Last night he was on Dom for about an hour and even then he woke up and wanted BOOB, Dom couldn't soothe him, he had to pass him over for me to nurse him because he was STARVING even though he'd fed...you guessed it...90 minutes before.

I'm getting desperate for some sleep.  This is when people resort to CIO isn't it?  Someone help me, how do I get my baby out of the bed without CIO before things get even worse and CIO is the only option???

P.S. While Baby Jett was tiny co-sleeping was awesome and I would still recommend it for the newborn, but once your baby hits about 8 weeks, GET HIM OUT if you eventually want him out because...at 5 months it's not working anymore.  We are co-sleeping failures and I need some sleep!

Baby Jett - 5 Months

I know a lot of you say that time flies by with your newborn and you wish you could keep them little forever and cry as you pack away your newborn clothes, and then the 0-3 month clothes, etc etc.  I'm not feeling any of this sadness as my baby grows up, I LOVE Baby Jett getting older.  Every month that Baby Jett gets a little bit older and more independent I'm a little bit happier mama.

I haven't cried over him getting older, doing new things, packing away clothes he's too big for etc etc.  I'm looking FORWARD to all the stuff that is in front of us rather than mourning what has already passed.

At 5 months Baby Jett:

Weight is 15 lbs 12 oz., that puts him smack dab in the middle at the 50th percentile.

Height is 26.5 inches, which puts him in the 75th percentile...this must be why everyone, including the pediatrician, thinks he looks big for his age.  Upon weighing him my ped was like oh...he's not big at all is he?  He has the allusion of being a big baby though, I have a lot of people tell me he's big for his age.  For the record, he's not!

Grabs everything and immediately puts it in his mouth.  This includes phones, cups of coffee, keys, books, etc.

Is quite the talker.  Chatty chatty chatty.  When reading stories to him at night he "reads" along...loudly.

Is teething, and he's got the drool to prove it.  All shirts are covered in drool immediately after putting them on.  He ends up wearing a bib for the drool most of the time.  The pediatrician says she can feel at least one tooth on the bottom but it could still be months before it comes through.  

Is an expert at the roll now, both from belly to back and back to belly.  He prefers to be on his belly when set down so that he can...

...work on crawling!  He is SO frustrated that he can't quite crawl yet.  He gets his butt up in the air and one knee under himself and then ends up scooching backward.  He HATES this and gets very vocal about how annoyed he is that his body is moving backward instead of forward.

Is almost sitting up on his own.  He can stop himself from falling forward and backward pretty good, but he still topples over sideways.

Is still exclusively breastfed and eats every few hours around the clock.

Is doing significantly better on the napping.  He consistently naps for an hour or more now for at least one nap a day by himself in his crib.

Still sleeps with us and still will not go down for the night anywhere but next to mama.

Is starting swimming lessons and music classes this month!  I'm excited for these as it will give us a little more structure to our week.  Monday swim class, Tues parenting group, etc etc.  It's always nice to have at least one outing every day.

He loves watching us eat and drink.  If you're holding him and you pick up something to drink he tries to grab it out of your hands.  We have to be careful with hot liquids now!

We've been given the go-ahead to start solids whenever we choose, so I'm just waiting for him to sit up completely unassisted and then we will begin some solids!  We're going the "feed the baby whatever you eat" route with solids, I will not be buying baby food and I will not be making baby special foods.

Is still such a smiler.  When he wakes up in the morning and gives us that big toothless smile...my heart melts.  When he's out of the bed sometime in the future this will be what I miss the most.

The change from month 4 to month 5 was astounding and to date this is my favorite age.  He has undergone SO many changes during this month from perfecting his rolling technique to sitting up on his own and attempting to crawl.  So many things going on with this little guy right now!

 

 

 

Jules Verne and Baby Jett at 5 months...Jules is not a fan of the baby and did NOT want to lay next to him for this picture.

Jules Verne and Baby Jett at one day old...what a difference 5 months makes!