Bill's cousin had told me about it a couple of months ago and after all of our sleep struggles lately I decided to finally order it. The authors are clearly not fans of attachment parenting and on demand feeding. And they make a good argument. If you have a baby that is feeding more frequently than 2-4 hours, it doesn't give your body enough time to produce enough milk in between feedings and the baby isn't getting both the pre milk and the hind milk (which contains the most fat, which they need to keep growing). Their whole setup is routine routine routine. Feeding, followed by wake time/playtime, followed by a nap. If they start crying when you put them down you can let them cry for 10-15 minutes, then go to them. I figured that was a time period I could handle. It wasn't 2 hours like some moms I had talked to. I knew I didn't have that in me. One of my only real complaints about the book is they make everything sound so simple. For example, when they talk about ascertaining which cry means what with your baby they make it sound so obvious and easy when it can be pretty tough. Like with Callie, we still don't know the difference maybe because her cry is so shrill and disturbing!
So after I had finished getting through the book I decided to give it a try. I fed her and then we played and then I put her down for a nap in her crib. I was a little worried that doing the sleep training and introducing the crib might be a bit much all at once, but she just won't fit in the co-sleeper anymore. This girl is going to pass up her mom and dad in height pretty soon if she doesn't slow down! I had also bought the baby einstein neptune soother.
It has a scrolling lighted ocean scene with music. It goes for about 15 minutes so it is perfect for our sleep training. I thought it would at least give her something to look at when she is hopping mad! So I put her down for a nap, turned on the soother and she started yelling. One thing the book talked about was parents' perception of time. So I set my stop watch on my phone for 15 minutes. I was shocked! If I hadn't been timing it, I probably would have gone in after 2 minutes. No wonder she wasn't sleeping at night! We weren't giving her time to settle herself down. Right around 12 minutes she calmed down and went to sleep. I couldn't believe it! She slept for about 30-40 minutes and then started yelling. I snuck in and turned on the soother again to see if she would go back down, but no luck. But my mom was coming over soon anyway to watch her for our usual thursday night date, so I got her up. Over dinner I laid it all out for Bill. Explained that if after 15 minutes she is still crying we can go pick her up and rock her or just pat her back and sing to her. So we got back home and gave her a bath (we are also working on her pre-sleep routine to send her the message that it is time for the long sleep) and fed her. She was mostly asleep so I laid her down in the crib. She woke up an hour later, and so we began! We snuck in and turned on the soother. We set the timer and waited. Good god 15 minutes is a long time. She was still crying so we went in and I rocked her for a couple of minutes and then put her down again. The 2nd 15 minutes was much worse. I was literally curling my toes. Bill and I held each other's hands for support and I think, to keep each other from bolting out of bed to go and get her. Thank god we were doing this in the crib. I don't know if I could've done it if it was happening in the same room. We got to the 15 minute mark again so we went back in. This time I cried with her. Bill put his arms around us both and Callie reached out her arms and held on. It was beautiful and heartwrenching all at the same time. Then down she went again. When I got back got back to the bedroom Bill had the book open looking for the part where it says what to do when she cries. I flipped through it and just as I was about to get to it and show him, we heard...Nothing. 5 minutes in she konked herself out. And she slept for FOUR AND A HALF HOURS! Praise the heavens! We had decided before we started that I would feed her during the night but not until after 2-3 am and here it was 5:30! We put her down again. She didn't struggle much this time because she was sleepy from eating and slept another couple of hours. It was amazing! And everyone is happier in the CG household today! Hopefully it will continue to go well.
I'm so happy to hear you are toughing it out and getting such instant gratification. I've heard of some families taking 1-2 weeks before it really gets easier. But it will all pay off once she's sleeping through the night. It's about the same process when it's time to give up the middle-of-the-night feeding -- she'll soon realize that her snack isn't coming and put herself right back to sleep.
ReplyDeleteI've gotten many incredulous responses to how our babies slept and people saying we are "so lucky". Maybe we were partly lucky, but, maybe it's because we made it happen. Some of those same people have then given me the look as if I was a child abuser when I tell them we put them in bed and let them scream for 15 minutes (in the beginning). They don't understand/believe that sleeping and the act of falling asleep becomes a learned/conditioned behavior once kids are engaged with the world around them.
Good luck, and I hope you start getting some well deserved, no fussing rest!
Thanks John! Ya, we were pretty relieved it went so well! I know what you mean about people's reactions. I must admit I've been a little tentative about telling other moms/dads that we know in person. Everyone is so touchy about this sort of thing! But I totally agree, it is all about routine and learned behavior!
ReplyDeleteHi there. So happy for you! I remember timing too and going out in the backyard;) I found Babywise to be too strict but I found that he naturally does what that book says--interesting! The key learning for me from all the books was really observing your baby--Tru does seem ready to go down for a nap after 2 hours of being up. Now that he's bigger it's more like 3...And yes I still wear earplugs so I don't run in when we hear him wake around 10. he goes back to sleep in like 15 mins.
ReplyDelete