At 8:18pm my husband put our overtired baby in his crib. It’s 8:35, and he’s still crying intermittently. Over the past few weeks, our nearly five-month-old son has clearly transformed from an infant with regular naps to a baby who wants nothing more than to play all day. Gone are the days when he would fall asleep whenever he needed to, wherever he happened to be. It’s been chaotic! I’ve never been one to believe in the “cry-it-out” method, so this is hard for me, but seeing my baby so tired all day is even harder. The poor thing needs to learn to fall asleep on his own and he needs more sleep at night. And so begins our adventures in sleep training.
I plan on blogging about our progress for all those moms out there who might be as hesitant as I to leave a crying baby in a crib. Parenting is a learning experience and a lot of lessons are learned the hard way. We often have certain ideals that may or may not fit in with our child’s needs. My parenting style worked wonderful until my baby discovered that the world around him was more interesting than sleeping. I would always spend a few minutes rocking him to sleep, swaddled with a pacifier. He would fall asleep easily and life was good. I have discovered that the problem with this technique is that I am the only one who can put him to sleep. Furthermore, he’s no longer content to be rocked to sleep. It’s as though he knows that I’m trying to put him to sleep and he protests. What’s the difference between him crying in my arms and crying in his crib? What if holding him is actually keeping him from falling asleep because he wants to play with me?
(8:42pm and it sounds like he’s asleep.) I have three goals for this week:
#1 Discover the magical bedtime window when my son is tired, but not so overtired that he is too agitated to fall sleep on his own. Tonight we tried 8:15pm. Tomorrow we’ll try 8pm.
#2 Establish a morning nap time and stick to it. We’ll start with 9am and adjust as needed.
#3 Wake him up at 7am each morning to help regulate his schedule, instead of letting him sleep in until 7:30 or 8am randomly.
Our current game plan is based on “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” by Marc Weissbluth, M.D. I’m going to look at a few other books as well until we find a technique that works for us.