Sleep / Training

Our 16 month old boy is still co-sleeping and nursing at night.  This arrangement is not what we had in mind.  We didn't start out co-sleeping.  In fact, we didn't begin co-sleeping until he was around 2.5 months of age, and we did it out of pure desperation for any sleep.  He woke up whenever we set him back down, and his then-undiagnosed lip tie prevented him from being able to eat enough to go more than an hour between feedings.  Rather than trying to set him down for 45 minutes in order to get a measly 45 minutes of sleep before the next waking, we gave up, brought him into bed with us, and got much more sleep this way.  Once we got his lip tie diagnosed and fixed around 6 months, he started sleeping for longer stretches -- mostly 2-3 hours, which -- don't get me wrong -- was a godsend compared to waking up every hour or so.  But now at 16 months, we are realizing that if we're going to get this kid sleeping through the night any time soon, we are gonna have to do this ourselves.

Let me say this before I go further: there are a zillion approaches to infant sleep.  If you are a parent, you are certain to know this and to have been subject to people telling you what the best way to do it with your own damned family is.  In my experience, and probably in yours, it varies by family and by child.  Some people co-sleep for years and are perfectly happy with that arrangement.  I have to be honest and say that most nights, I'm fine it and enjoy it.  But my husband is truly getting the short end of the stick.  Calvin is a light sleeper... and so is Dan.  When one of them doesn't get a good night sleep, NEITHER of them get a good night's sleep.  And that means that I don't get a good night sleep.  And that stinks.  And I'm not interested in kicking Dan out of bed for the sake of this arrangement.  So, then.  Sleep-training.

For those of you who have not read a lot about infant sleep or whose chldren magically slept through the night before you needed to put too much effort into it, pretty all the methods boil down to co-sleep versus not co-sleep, and cuddle/sooth versus crying.  Sometimes crying and soothing happen at the same time; it may not be the infant's desired form of soothing, but the parent is still present.  We have tried the "No Cry Sleep Solution," the Elizabeth Pantly method of slowly changing the circumstances while the baby magically doesn't mind that there isn't a boob in his mouth when he is falling asleep. We tried this method around 10 or so months, and there was crying.  Oh, there was crying.  That said, he eventually got the idea that he could settle on his own and was able to at least go to sleep without nursing during the falling-asleep part.  He still woke up and nursed, but he'd eventually roll over to get into a more comfortable position, and so would I.  That was 6 months ago.  Slow progress has been our M.O.

Every method I've read, Ferber, Pantly, Sleep Lady, lots more, and this guy Dr. Jay Gorden, the full spectrum from cry-it-out to cuddle, all recommend not instigating sleep changes while the baby is teething and waiting until you are at a point where you have a couple of weeks of the same schedule with no vacations and/or visitors coming.  I'm sure there are families out there whose stars have so aligned, but not us.  He's always teething.  And we have visitors.  And we go places.  And I am in grad school, so I definitely don't have anything resembling a steady schedule.  And he's always teething.

That said, I think Jay Gorden's approach is the closest to the one that seems to be working for us.  We didn't do it on purpose, and we haven't chosen a 7-hour stretch wherein Calvin will not nurse (it's more like 4.  I know.  Pathetic.).  We are basically doing his variation over a period of months instead of days.  We're in the stage where we sooth him in his crib next to our bed (where he sleeps for four hours, anyway).  During the day, Dan reads to him or holds his hand.  The funny thing is that Calvin is far more willing to accept comfort from Dan than he is from me.  If I'm in the room with him while he is falling asleep and he's not next to me in bed, it takes him far longer to work through his feelings and go to sleep than it does if I'm in the next room.  

We knew from the time that Calvin was 3 months old that the process of getting him to sleep more independently would involve crying.  That's because he was 3 months old when he stopped screaming in the car and would consent to go to sleep.  So.  He now falls asleep like an angel in the car, as long as there's no one talking with him to keep him interested in being awake.  Some of our friends say, "you're so lucky."  Ha!  Are we?  It was hard-earned.  And I was hoping to avoid the crying thing with him since it hurts my nervous system, but I've realized that, with this kid, that's what it's gonna take.

Though his strategy is similar to what we are doing, I can't stand reading Jay Gordon's sleep piece because it's sooooo attachment-parenting judgy-judgy. I may have turned out to be sort of an attachment parent, but it wasn't on purpose. It's what worked for our family with this child. But this article does make me feel better about hearing Calvin cry. He writes, "Now, he will tell you that he is angry and intensely dislikes this new routine. I believe him. He will also try to tell you that he’s scared. I believe he’s angry, but a baby who’s had hundreds of nights in a row of cuddling is not scared of falling asleep with your hand on his back and your voice in his ear. Angry, yes. Scared, no, not really."  That made me feel better.  But in the real sense, I know my child, and I know him well enough to know that he cries when he doesn't get what he wants.  And this is definitely not what he wants.

But it's what he needs.  We as a family need to be getting more sleep.  And that involves a separate bed.  And, for now, some crying.