Posts Tagged ‘co-sleep’

All of us are looking for ways to help our babies sleep with as little crying as possible. No crying would be ideal and surprisingly (when I look back at our long and difficult journey), the first few nights I actually helped my challenging sleeper of a son learn to fall asleep with virtually NO tears. It took TWO LONG HOURS for TWO LONG NIGHTS, but by the third night he did it in just 20 minutes and then on the 4th night with no tears into his crib (we were trying to stop cosleeping because it wasn’t working for us). It was a test of my patience when I knew nursing him to sleep would have made him fall asleep in less than two minutes. It was frustrating for both of us, but I was able to keep him from crying by using many of my mommy “tools” and doing anything but nursing him (I had already nursed him for a feeding before we started, so he was not hungry) but not until he was all the way asleep.

Learning about sleep associations was the single-most important thing that helped me start getting better sleep for my son (which was and still is very important for his happiness and behavior) and therefore for the rest of the family. It seems so obvious now, but back then I surely did not “get it” why he would wake up the minute I put him down. Didn’t he “need” to nurse to fall asleep because of the sucking reflexes of a baby being so strong that I read so much about and because he never used a pacifier? Once I understood that nursing to sleep and rocking to sleep became the things he thought he needed to fall asleep and the thing he needed recreated all night, the next step was to figure out a way to help him learn to do that without feeling like I was taking away an emotional attachment that nursing was and feeling like I was damaging him, without replacing the nursing or rocking with something else I’d have to recreate and with no tears, if possible.

Keeping your eye on the long-term goal is the #1 key to successfully helping your baby from no crying to sleep. It will always be easier right this minute to go ahead and nurse, give her a bottle, give her the pacifier, rock her to sleep, bounce on a ball, put her in a carseat on the dryer, put her in the car and drive around, walk her around, dance and sing than to take the time to teach her a new skill. Just like it’s easier to feed your baby than to let her learn to feed herself or put on your toddler’s shoes rather than let him try by himself, it will be easier to do it for them. But, for long-term progress and to let her learn how to do something herself, you have to let her try and you have to avoid doing it for her. Take it as slow as you want, but it is a learning process that you need to get out of the way of for it to work. Sure, you can wait to see when she might learn it on her own, after all no one goes to college not knowing how to put on their shoes, but is a month, six months, 16 months, 2 1/2 years, or 4 years of sleep deprivation worth it to wait?

Who knew when you were pregnant that you’d have to TEACH your baby to sleep? Teach your baby to read, teach your baby sign language, or teach your baby to write, but teach them to sleep? Such a foreign concept, but it’s true. To teach a baby how to sleep without much YOU need to recreate all day and night is a challenge and depending on the baby’s temperament and tendency to “fight sleep” or not will be the deciding factor on how difficult it is to teach your baby. Some don’t have much learning to do while others will struggle on and off for so long that you don’t know even know when you’re done teaching them.

Unfortunately, my no cry sleep results were short-lived in our house and we struggled a lot around sleep, but it has made me so happy that the things I’ve learned since then has helped me help other parents with no cry sleep methods. I’ve helped a mom stop sleeping in a glider with her 8 month old baby and a 16 month old transition to the crib, just to name two, with no cry sleep methods. Those were a couple of really tough cases, too!

Cry it out is certainly not easy and certainly not the first thing we try as parents, but it makes me wonder if I had someone like ME when I was in need of sleep support whether I would have avoided our tears or not. I never regret it, I know it did not change my baby’s personality, and I guess we will never know, but I’m fortunate to be able to use my knowledge in my quest to help others.

No cry sleep methods are not for the faint of heart if you have a challenging sleeper and they take more time, but with a strong support system, they are possible to put into practice.

If you are just joining us, you should start at Part 1 of my sleep training series.

In this final part of the series, I am going to share my story. I’m doing this for a couple of reasons. First, I want you to get to know me and my story, so I’m not just some name on the internet claiming to have gone through something similar to what you might be going through. I want you to know you aren’t alone. Sure, I suppose, I could be making up my story, but believe me I wish I were, but I’m not. LOL Second, I want to tell you my story because it shows that “experts” don’t have all the answers. You know your baby best! And, away we go!

Sleep Training My First Son

Donovan (in photo above), my eldest son, is a spirited child. He was high-needs basically from the beginning. He needed a LOT of soothing, whether it was me nursing, rocking, or holding him or my husband rocking him or walking him around (and he never took a pacifier – we must have tried 20 of them!). But, thankfully, he was not colicky. He didn’t cry a lot unless he was tired and we weren’t walking, rocking, nursing, etc. He was and still is very sensitive to becoming overtired. I/we had to watch him like a hawk to see if it was time to sleep again. Once he was overtired, it was much harder to get him to sleep.

Around 6 weeks old it was taking me upwards of 2-3 hours to put him to bed at night. I am NOT exaggerating. I would rock him and put him down ever so gently and he’d wake right up and I’d start alllll over! It was so exhausting. After I’d finally get him down, I’d start all over 1-2 hours later when he woke up again. Of course, now I know about sleep associations and why he was doing that. At 8 weeks old, I went back to work and simply could not keep up, so we started co-sleeping, something I never planned to do. I knew it worked for other people, but just wasn’t what I planned or wanted. But, it got us both more sleep…sorta. Since he had to nurse every 1-2 hours, he had to sleep with me and I was so fearful of rolling on him or my husband covering him with covers that I really didn’t sleep well, not to mention it wasn’t always so easy for me to go back to sleep after he nursed (and I never got good at nursing on the other side without physically switching sides! LOL). Anyway, it was better than what I was doing before, though.

Fast forward 8 weeks and he was 4 months old. I was getting depressed going to bed every night at 7pm and never seeing my husband that I had to do something to transition him back to his crib, where he originally started.

I needed to formulate a plan, but I didn’t just want to put him in a room to cry when I had been sleeping with him every night. I didn’t think that was fair. So, first I used the method I described in Part 2 of this sleep training series. The first night, it took TWO LONG HOURS and was very frustrating for both of us. He surprisingly didn’t cry too much, either. He took to sucking on my sheet to soothe himself. The next night it took another TWO LONG HOURS. Ugh. But, by night 3 he did it in just 20 minutes and then the 4th night in the crib with NO CRYING! I was ecstatic!!

But…a week later he decided he didn’t like this arrangement. He had a revolt. LOL I had given him a light receiving blanket that I slept on to suck on, but by the end of the week I guess it just wasn’t enough. So, at that point, my husband and I decided to let him cry-it-out. At this point we knew he could do it and we decided he was protesting the change (like he’s done for other things for years now LOL). It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. No mother plans on letting their baby cry to learn how to sleep. I made myself a mantra to get through it and reminded myself why I was doing it. Like I said, he’s spirited, so he didn’t cry just 5 minutes and then sleep through the night like some books want to make it seem! But, we got through it in just 4 nights and on the 5th he went to sleep with NO CRYING.

I only focused on bedtime, at this point, and promptly responded to all other wakings. Thankfully, after he learned to fall asleep AT bedtime, he could go BACK to sleep throughout the night during sleep transitions. He still woke to eat twice until he was 7 1/2 months old and then he only woke once until I tried to night-wean at 8 1/2 months. Even though the “experts” will tell you babies don’t need to eat at night after a certain age/weight/whatever, he continued to wake in the 5 o’clock hour 3-4 times per week for a feeding. I tried to extend him, but decided it was just best for both of us to continue to nurse and put him back down for 1-2 hours up until he was a little over a year old when he stopped waking on his own. But, even then it was difficult for him to go 12 hours without food and he’d want breakfast immediately upon waking. All babies are different in this regard. Heck, I know some adults would have trouble with going 12 hours without food! :p

Alas, sleep training was not a cure-all for us but it did make things 10 times better. We had many many ups and downs after that. He would slip back into bad habits and all of a sudden I’d find myself rocking him for an hour again. I don’t know how it would happen, but I suppose it was during a teething episode, illness, etc. and things would just start to unravel again and we’d have to let him cry-it-out again. Some might say that this means cry-it-out didn’t work, but I don’t regret my decision one bit…EVER. It *was* our only option. We had tried everything else and it would land us in a big abyss of not-enough-sleep-for-any-of-us and when he didn’t get enough sleep, he was a BEAR! It wasn’t good for him. It wasn’t worth it for me to rock him for an hour to avoid 10 minutes of crying. That was robbing him of 50 more minutes of sleep and believe me, he needed it.

Nowadays, sleep is still ever important in this house for him. He is still a bear if he doesn’t get enough sleep only now he whines more, cries more, and has more tantrums. I *know* that as he goes through life and goes to school, it will be IMPERATIVE that my husband and I get him adequate sleep or he will be one of the kids with behavior problems. I think many parents probably struggle with this and not realize their child simply needs more sleep. I can imagine that if you haven’t really been able to tune into the relationship between sleep and behavior, you might miss it. I know the fact he is spirited makes a big difference.

Of course, I need to mention that my sweet son is just that, too. He is much more challenging without enough sleep, but boy is he one of the brightest lights of my life! He is so smart (I’m not exaggerating LOL) and such a sweetheart giving me kisses and telling me he loves me and kissing his little brother and…I could go on and on. At one point he knew over 30 signs for communicating before he could talk, he could point to over 30 U.S. states when he was just over a year old, knew his ABC’s before he was 2, and so on. Allowing him to cry-it-out in no way damaged him or his self-esteem. He is still ever so strong-willed and negotiates EVERYTHING (I swear he will be a lawyer!). He still trusts us and loves us to pieces.

Sleep Training My Second Son

Nicholas (photo to the right) is my 2nd son and now just 4 months old. Completely different than Donovan. We haven’t had to do much with him and he has started to sleep well. You might think it’s because I know more this time. I disagree. I have not done things THAT much different with Nicholas. Because I seem to birth screamers (not fussers), when he came home from the hospital I had to hold him all night for at least 2-3 weeks. I sat upright on the couch while he laid on the boppy . He just couldn’t be set down much at all. Then, I just HAD to get off the couch, so what did I do? You guessed it. We started co-sleeping, only this time I bought a The First Years Close and Secure Sleeper. That lasted just 3 nights because he was such a loud sleeper and even when he wasn’t awake, I’d reach over and pat his back probably waking him up. So, I decided to try to put the sleeper in the crib with him and voila! He’s been in there ever since (we removed the sleeper about 2 weeks later or so).

For awhile, we still rocked him to sleep (and still do for naps, for now), but then we slowly stopped that and started letting him fall asleep on the boppy on our lap in the rocker and then eventually was able to just put him in the crib and he sucks on…yep…a light receiving blanket. Naps might be a different story, but overall, he’s simply learned how to soothe himself much easier than Donovan did. I really don’t take credit. He’s just different (and not as sensitive to over-tiredness). Pure and simple. And, that’s why those with “easy” babies won’t ever understand how someone like me could allow my son to cry or how some people would find it strange to even have a whole website dedicated to sleep for babies. It’s simply not easy for all babies!

I hope sharing my story has given others either a) hope that they can also have a good sleeper, b) strength to make a change, c) comfort they are not alone, or d) all of the above. There really isn’t just one way to help your child sleep better. There really isn’t a “right” method for all of us. We all must find what works for our personalities and for our children’s temperament. I hope you can find information on this website to do just that.

What’s Your Sleep Training Story?

In Part 1 of this series I discussed why it’s a good idea to sleep train your baby and the bedtime routine, your first step. Now I will discuss the various methods to help your child learn how to fall asleep without your “help”.

Co-Sleeping

Co-sleeping is not a “sleep training method”, but I wanted to talk about a way you can sleep train your baby but still co-sleep. Remember, sleep training is not cry-it-out (CIO). You can sleep train without letting your baby cry. Co-sleeping works for many families without any special steps taken, but for some it’s difficult due to the fact their baby wants to nurse all night. Nursing may or may not be the challenge for the mother, but perhaps the fact she can’t go right back to sleep during or after nursing. And, maybe mom and dad want to continue co-sleeping, but not nurse all night.

In some cases, nursing while co-sleeping has become the baby’s sleep association and the key is to break that association. But, how do you do it without letting the baby cry, yet still sleep in the family bed? The key to this dilemma is to help your baby learn to fall asleep without nursing. You will want to move nursing away from the final moment your baby falls asleep, but without replacing one sleep association (e.g. nursing to sleep) for another (e.g. rocking your baby). I include pacifiers as a sleep association. I am not a big fan of pacifiers but know plenty of people who use them and have no problems. But, others become frustrated they are replacing the pacifier 8-10 times per night. At this point, the pacifier has become a hindrance more than a help, so be very careful not to replace nursing with a pacifier. Once baby learns how to fall asleep without nursing, (s)he can start to learn to go BACK to sleep throughout the night, which is true of all sleep associations. This method will take a lot of patience, determination and committment on the parents’ parts, but with consistency, it can work.

Co-sleeping Safety

I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about co-sleeping safety. It gets a bad rep sometimes, but when done properly, it can be perfectly safe. If you feel nervous you are going to roll on top of the baby, an Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper or The First Years Close & Secure Sleeper are great options. Dr. Sears’ website has more tips including put baby next to mom, not between mom and dad, sleep in a large queen or king-size bed, and don’t sleep on a too-cushion-y surface where you might roll over too easily (e.g. waterbed or couch), among other tips. He makes sure to mention not to sleep with your baby if you are severely sleep-deprived where you might be less aware of your baby. Ironically, I would think this is when most people do start to sleep with their baby (if they didn’t plan to from the get-go like me).

When co-sleeping isn’t working

There may be another reason or multiple reasons co-sleeping is difficult for your family. If it’s not working for you, that’s okay. It works for some, but not all. This is not a reflection on you as a parent. Some people are too nervous and don’t sleep well due to worry. I’d say that makes you a caring parent. Some people just can’t go right back to sleep. You have no control over that. Some babies are very active, waking you up all hours of the night. Whatever the reason, if it’s not working for you, don’t let guilt drive you to more and more sleep deprivation, which can lead to unhappiness, stress, and depression. Once you feel ready, you may want to transition your baby out of the family bed. As I always say, well-rested babies make happy babies and well-rested parents make happy parents and happy parents make better parents.

Continue to Part 3 of this series where I discuss the “fading” approach.