Wednesday, May 18

Sleep Training

So I was at my whit's end about this whole sleeping thing. Not the nighttime sleep, which actually has been descent. He wakes up every 2-4 hours, eats, and goes back to sleep. This works until about 6am or so, when he wakes every hour, which is rough. The real issue was during the day, when he won't sleep on his own -- he HAS to be held. This means that my whole day is either feeding him, or sitting there while he sleeps on he. And if  it had been a particularly bad night (more 2-hour intervals than 4-hour intervals, for example), I don't get a chance to rest, save a cat-nap while sitting in the chair. I was getting a little crazy . . . and by "little", I mean full-blown melt-downs. After calling Chris on his way to the subway and basically demanding that he come back and take the screaming baby for a few minutes so I can have a meltdown with BOTH hands, I decided we needed a change.

I decided that I just needed to be stubborn and try everything, to keep putting him back in the crib over and over until he got it. I started simply, just putting him in the crib while half-asleep. That lasted about 10 minutes. When he cried, I picked him up, rocked/bounced until he fell asleep, and put him back. We did that until it was time to eat again.
The next time, I remembered something about "white noise", how people run the vacuum or a hair dryer. I pulled out the vacuum and ran it while holding him. He zonked out, and I put him in the crib leaving the vacuum on next to it. He woke up about 10 minutes later, I picked him up, and bounced him while sitting next to the vacuum. He stayed asleep for a few minutes each time, but wasn't very "sound" (plus the vacuum was making the house sort of hot).

After the next feeding, I pulled one of the speakers down from shelf and put it in the crib. It's attached to Chris's mp3 player/radio, so he can listen to the radio in the living room. I set the radio to a static station and turned it up. It was VERY effective! He zonked out immediately! After a few minutes he woke himself up by flailing, and I realized that I was missing one more step -- he needs to be swaddled.

So, the static radio turned up pretty loud plus a full body-bind swadding . . . and he slept for AN HOUR AND HALF!!! ON HIS OWN!!!! I couldn't believe it!

I was so excited, I ran around getting things done. I scanned pictures, wrote thank you cards, stashed my yarn, and ate a real lunch.