The Original

So I started writing this shortly after my daughter was born but never published anything. Below is the first entry that I would have made had I started "The Baby Log Blogs" years ago! 

The baby log blogs

The Sleep Training Begins

Okay, so it’s not really sleep training, well, yes, it kind of is….

Let me start by saying that I love my baby and my husband with all my heart. I try really hard to be the best mom and wife possible.

I must also say that my husband and I do NOT believe in the “cry it out” method, so if anyone is even thinking of suggesting that…don’t. Besides not believing in it, it doesn’t work on my child anyway. We did try it a couple of times, and we make trips occasionally down state to see family and she cries the entire two hour drive with just the occasional stopping for about five minutes to watch her mother make a fool out of herself by wearing ear muffs in 70 degree weather in the car while making faces at her to try to make her stop crying. After a few minutes, she bores of that and starts right back up again.

We do not like the “cry it out method” for a number of reasons. One of those being that since we are both educated in the field of Human Development/Family Studies, we have read research stating that this method CAN harm attachment. We would prefer to have a securely attached child simply because research shows that securely attached children have less conflict with their family and usually does much better in life as well as in social situations. Now, this is not to say that this method is bad or that anyone who does this will have a child that is not securely attached or a child that will not do well in life, I do not believe that. I am just saying that we prefer to listen to research and attachment parenting styles that encourage a more responsive approach because WE believe that it is best for OUR child based on what we have read and what we have been taught.

Let me start with some background first…

My daughter has three main sleep “problems” (for lack of a better word):

1.     At night she rarely allows me to comfort her without breastfeeding her.

2.     When she does fall asleep, many times, even though she is showing all the signs that she is in deep sleep, she wakes either upon movement to try to get her into her crib or upon placement into the crib. Now, I must admit that part of this problem is because I am only 5’1” with short arms and therefore have to practically bend my entire body over the crib to put her in gently, but there are other times that this is NOT the problem and she gets put down as gentle as possible and still wakes up, there are also times that she gets put down and wakes suddenly as I creep silently to the door to leave.

3.     During the day, she refuses to nap for me without being breastfed. If my husband is home with her, she gets fussy, then he has to hold her until she falls asleep. He is then too afraid that she will wake up to put her into her crib most times.

My daughter started sleeping through the night about 5 weeks or so afterbirth. She slept through the night nearly every single night. When she did wake up, she woke up only once and it was usually very brief.

When I started going back to school in the fall, she was about 2 and a half months old. Two mornings a week, I had to get up for classes at 7 am and two mornings a week, my husband had to get up just as early. Suddenly, she started waking up several times a night, every night.

At first, I just got up with her. But it got very tiring, very fast. My husband and I talked about it and since I was the one getting up, I had to be the one to make the decision on how to deal with it. Now, many of you may say “why were you the only one getting up with her?” Well, because I was (and still am) breastfeeding. Yes, I know, I could pump a bottle and have my hubby deal with it, but do you know how hard it is to warm a bottle up when you have a very hungry baby, especially when she doesn’t wake up on a schedule?

I first attempted to let her cry. One night I tried and I couldn’t handle it. I was in the living room crying myself saying that it was cruel. My husband told me to do what I felt was right….I ran in and got her. My husband then suggested that I use an altered approach to letting her “cry it out”. I would go into her room at night (we began to establish a set bed time also at this time because we read that this could also help night waking), and nurse her to sleep. After she fell asleep, I would attempt to put her in her crib. If she woke up, I would leave the room for 3 minutes and let her cry by herself. I would then go back in and try to comfort her without picking her up, if this did not work, I would pick her up and comfort her. After she was good and comforted (usually this meant asleep again), I would then try to put her in her crib again. I would keep this routine up as long as it took. For the first few nights, this took about 2 hours. Upon night waking, I would do the same thing. This usually took only once or twice in the middle of the night.

Soon, this method was working enough that she was sleeping through the night 3-4 nights a week and putting her to bed only took one try. Many of the nights that she was waking though, she was waking up a lot. This started to be a problem for us. Getting up so early for me was grueling with being up and down all night. It was tough on my husband as well. Although he did not get up with her, he could hear her on the monitor. This would keep him up nights so I would try to take the monitor with me (we can’t shut it off on her end because it will beep incessantly on the other end and we can’t just plug it in on my side of the bed and have me turn it off because there are no easy to get to plugs there) and then just bring it back to her after I was done with her but one of two things would happen, if I put it back in the cradle, I would wake my husband up, or if I just left it on my side of the room, my constant up and down would wake him.

Now, again, you may say “Well, if you had to be up with her, and he doesn’t at least he should be awake.” But, a few of things….one, I care that my husband gets sleep even if I don’t; two , I love the man, but he is introverted and teaches all day, which means that he gets drained easily, he is also trying to quit drinking caffeine. These things mean that he needs his rest because….three, if both of us get no sleep, we WILL kill each other!