There are many things about parenting that are hard. It’s hard when you know you have to do something for them that you don’t really want to do. It’s hard to constantly re-examine your beliefs and what you’re doing.<\/p>\n
I am not ready to give up cosleeping. I really love having her next to me, it’s comforting to me and peaceful. I’ve tried making it work these last couple of months but I’m finally having to face the idea that maybe it’s not the best thing for her<\/i> anymore. She thinks she needs me right next to her at night, which means that from her bedtime until mine she’s waking up every hour, crying and searching for me. This can be hard on me on those days when I just need a quiet evening to unwind, and it’s also hard on her to have constantly interrupted sleep. And the thing is, she doesn’t<\/i> need me. Her naps are now averaging 1-2 hours in length, and the other day she took a 3.5 hour nap, all by herself in her bed. When I look at it objectively, when I see that her naps – alone, in her own bed – are going fantastic, and nights – half alone, half with me in our bed – are getting worse with earlier and earlier wake-ups and then cranky whiny days, it’s obvious we need to change this. I wish<\/i> she would just sleep great until midnight and then sleep great next to me until morning… but that’s just not happening anymore and what I have tried has not worked. It’s time for me to let go. I just don’t feel ready to yet.<\/p>\n
I know that I’m her security blanket. When she rouses her hand immediately gropes out in the dark for me, she’ll sink back into contented sleep as soon as she touches me. She likes to hold my hand while she sleeps. Honestly, I love that. I love holding her and cuddling her, I love her reaching out to touch me in the middle of the night. If she wakes up more fully then she wants to nurse – even if she’s not hungry, she will cry until she gets to nurse and then she’ll fall right back to sleep. That’s a bit more of a bother in the winter (it’s cold!), but again I don’t really mind it too much. But this makes the hours of 8pm-1am really miserable for both of us, she wakes up once an hour – sometimes more, sometimes less – looking for me and crying. And every time I go in there I have to nurse her to calm her down. At this point I think the nursing is just habit, it’s the routine and she gets angry if I try to skip that step.<\/p>\n
I know, I know<\/i>, that in order to help her sleep better I need to change her sleep association. It’s really as simple as that. I have no issue nursing in the middle of the night if she’s hungry, I have no problem going in to help her if she really needs me. But she doesn’t need me 8 times a night… or rather, she needs to feel secure enough to realize that she doesn’t need me 8 times a night.<\/p>\n
I still don’t think letting her CIO is the right choice, but the more I think about it the more I realize that’s not the only option. I – and many parenting books – have the habit of looking at things in yes\/no polars, either you follow their plan to the T or you will never fix it…. either you let them CIO or they will never sleep. As if there’s no middle ground. But really, isn’t the goal to teach them to be independent? There have to be other, gentler ways of accomplishing that. It will just take time, and it will take consistency. I don’t mind the time, but consistency is so not my strong point.<\/p>\n
Last night I started. I nursed her when I put her to sleep, I love the cuddles and quiet time. Then I sat up, put her on her belly, tucked her into the blanket, gave her Eeyore (her soft stuffed animal I am trying<\/i> to make her lovie). I patted her back and sung to her. She of course cried a little and tried to get onto her hands and knees to crawl over to me. I put her back on her belly, patted and sung some more, and told her that I believe in her, she can do this, she needs to go to sleep. She whimpered briefly, but my singing calms her quickly. (I am so thankful my voice is finally returning, not being able to sing to her was making bedtime much longer than it should be!) She woke several times and between 8 and midnight I did not<\/i> nurse her. It wasn’t a struggle like I feared… she actually did really well with it, just crying a little and trying to crawl towards me a few times as I patted shushed and sung to her. I let her hold my hand for a few seconds if it helped her calm down, then I gently took my hand away before she fell all the way asleep. It takes her longer to fall asleep with me cuddling her, but the hope is that once she figures out that she can put herself to sleep it will be quicker.<\/p>\n
When she woke at 12:15 I nursed her and put her back down. We went to bed after that and I of course was laying there awake worrying and wondering if she was going to wake up any second now. It took me a long time to fall asleep. When I jolted awake to the sound of her crying I was astounded to see that it was 4:15. I nursed her again, then it took me a couple of tries to get her to sleep… she woke up after 20 minutes or so. But she went right back to sleep, so around 5. And then? Then she woke up at 8:30. Wow. I think that’s better than what her normal is sleeping next to me. (Probably because we rustle around and she wants to nurse if I’m there.)<\/p>\n
I’m really glad she seems open to the changes… I was afraid she was going to throw a fit at me. (And those may come… I’ll just do my best to calm her, comfort her, and get her to sleep.) I know she can do this.<\/p>\n
::<\/p>\n
I’ve spent a lot of time lately really examining my judgments and beliefs. Early on it did seem very black and white with her – she either slept or she screamed. I made up my mind not only about Kate, but about babies in general. As she grows I’m realizing there’s a whole lot of middle ground.<\/p>\n
Not only that, but babies are all different. CIO definitely was not going to work for Kate or us, but now I’m not so sure that it’s absolutely horrible for all babies, if that makes sense. Not all get utterly hysterical like Kate did\/does. I also look at babies who sleep peacefully all night long and thinking that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe I have done Kate a disservice by letting things disintegrate the way it has.<\/p>\n
I think that’s the absolutely hardest part about admitting you might be wrong about previous opinions as a parent: If you change your mind it means you should have been doing something different. If I admit that sleep training isn’t a terrible horrible thing, that in fact in some ways it’s useful and could help her, it means that I have not been doing the best thing for her these last two months. That’s a really hard pill to swallow. I’m not going to beat myself up over it, but it does make me feel guilty. But then I also feel guilty for not cosleeping anymore… I have to admit I liked belonging to that club.<\/p>\n
I’m starting to see that there are few right and wrong answers… and a lot of grey to muddle through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are many things about parenting that are hard. It’s hard when you know you have to do something for them that you don’t really want to do. It’s hard to constantly re-examine your beliefs and what you’re doing. I am not ready to give up cosleeping. I really love having her next to me, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[165],"class_list":["post-3478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-sleep"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3479,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3478\/revisions\/3479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}