Sleep Training

So this is how I feel about Sleep Training….Patrick = WINNER ; Mom and Dad= EXHAUSTED

Last week we decided to start sleep training. Since Patrick had slept through the night a few times recently, I felt like he was capable of sleeping through the night and was just waking up because he wanted to cuddle. I hadn’t tried before because he is such a tiny little baby and I really thought he was getting hungry in the middle of the night. But now that he has started sleeping through the night a couple times a week, and he is over 9 months old, it’s really time for him to sleep through the night every night!

I knew that this was going to be a very difficult task since Patrick is such a stubborn baby! Probably more stubborn than Michael and I combined. He does not quit until he gets what he wants! He has been like this since he was born. Perfectly happy baby as long as you hold him exactly the way he wants and feed him exactly the way he wants! It’s pretty funny that personalities can shine through so much at such an early age!

We started last Monday night and my plan was to put him to sleep the way he prefers. He has to be fully asleep before he goes in his crib to sleep for the night or he freaks out. I finally got him to sleep around 9pm. He woke up at 12am and I let him cry for 10 minutes. He was standing up and slamming his fists on the side of the crib and throwing a huge fit. He got so worked up that he was starting to hyperventilate. Most everyone I have talked to who has tried this said that they let their children cry for 10 minutes and they went to sleep on their own. Well not my little Patrick! I went in there, but did not pick him up and tried to just lay him back down and pat his back until he went to sleep. I left the room after a couple of minutes of soothing him and he freaked out. I tried this about 15 times, but he was getting so angry that I gave up and just picked him up and fed him. It took me until 2am to get him back to bed since he was so upset. Then I hear Patrick wake up and scream at 3:30am. After letting him scream for a few minutes and determining that he was not going to go back to bed on his own I went and got him. It took me over an hour to get the little guy to go back to bed. He ended up sleeping until 6:30am.

I took him to Margaret’s and told her that he barely slept the night before and should take some good naps. When I picked him up I expected for him to have napped, but he did not nap at all that day.

Even though I was exhausted, I decided I would try the sleep training again. I figured that he was exhausted from the night before (as was I) and that he had to sleep, right? Not the case… things went pretty similar to the night before. Around 4am, when Patrick woke up for the second time (we had already been up from 1-3), I was so exhausted that I got Michael up to help. Michael went up there and Patrick cried even harder. He is definitely a momma’s boy at night! So we all ended up watching Elmo (Patrick’s favorite) in bed for a couple hours until we could get him back to sleep. He only took two 30 minute naps at Margaret’s the next day.

After two nights of getting about 3 hours of sleep each night, I decided I was done with the sleep training and Patrick had won! Going to work those two days was absolute torture! Patrick ended up sleeping through the night the third night, so luckily I didn’t have to get up with him! I also noticed a tooth come through the morning after he slept through the night. I’m still not sure if he was rebelling against the sleep training or the tooth was bothering him. Either way, i’m not trying it again! Even though I only let him cry by himself for 10-15 minutes at a time, I don’t think I can watch him get so upset about it anymore!

Sleep Update

I started this post about 2 weeks ago after it happened and I am just not recovering enough to finish it! Since the sleep training incident, we have not tried to do sleep training again! This week Patrick slept through the night 3 times. The other 4 nights he woke up at 3 am, ate and then went back to bed. I’ll take 3 nights of sleep over the sleep training nonsense any day!

Before trying the sleep training, I had read lots of articles about crying-it-out and sleep training, etc. I have tried almost every method recommended (except where you leave them to cry for hours on end… my limit is 10 minutes!) None of them worked for Patrick. Parenting really doesn’t come with a manual, does it? I have come to the conclusion that Patrick will sleep through the night when he is ready and there isn’t a darn thing I can do about it! Until then I’ll try and savor the precious moments I get with Patrick in the wee hours of the night. He makes sweet little noises and his chubby little hand always rubs my face while I feed him. Once the sleep deprivation passes, I know I’ll miss this! I'm sure I'll look back on these days and wish I could go back to the times where Patrick only wanted to cuddle with me in the middle of the night!