did you feel that?

I bet you were wondering what the heck that loud sound that woke you up this morning was. That, my friends, was the sound of the universe shifting. A spectacular event that is truly nothing short of a bionafied miracle took place last night. MY BABY SLEPT ALL! NIGHT! LONG! I am ecstatic and rather jubilant this morning. I also don’t have a headache for the first time in a couple of months.

As I mentioned last week, Baby J started “sleep school” (whenever I tell people that he is in sleep school they always ask me, “where?” with a confused look on their faces. Never fails to make me laugh!). I was inspired by Jen over at Amazing Trips to read Marc Weissbluth’s Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. She has triplets that sleep well and is working on getting her fourth baby on a sleep schedule so I figured it was worth reading. I had run out of all the tricks I used to get the other two to sleep and was so tired that I was just exacerbating the problems.

I have been devouring Weissbluth’s book. It’s fascinating and fits well with our parenting style. He believes that the most important thing you can do for your family is to create a loving home with well-rested children and well-rested parents (pg. 13). Everyone, including Mom and Dad need to have a good nights sleep in order to function well and be happy together. Just as we don’t feed our kids all kinds of junk food or let them get overly hungry, we also need to provide them with good quality, regular sleep. I think we have done a good job of giving the other two enough rest (except, perhaps letting G give up her naps too early). Now it is Baby J’s turn to learn to sleep well. As I have said before, I’ve come to believe that teaching him how to sleep, no matter how difficult the process, is an act of kindness for our entire family.

Until last week I was very reticent to leave Baby J to cry. With the months and months of crying, tummy pain, suspected allergies etc that we have experienced, the last thing I wanted to do was listen to him cry more. I literally could not handle the sound of his wailing. With my level of exhaustion, I also lost perspective on whether his crying was because he needed me or simply wanted me. I believe that it is cruel to leave him to cry if he needs me (or his Daddy) but am very happy for him to learn that we can’t hang out at night if he simply wants me. This was particularly helpful to read:
“When your child is crying and he is not hungry, say to yourself: “My baby is crying because he loves me so much he wants my company, but he needs to sleep. I know the value of good sleep, and I love my baby so much that I am going to let him sleep” (pg. 262). Even if that means letting him cry.

We have been working on getting Baby J on a regular sleep schedule. We’re aiming for getting up around 7am (that was painful to “want”), first nap at 9:00am, second nap at 1:00pm, a possible short third nap (which he often takes) around 4 or 5:00pm and then bedtime close to 7:00pm with one (or no) night nursing around 5:00am. I was pretty skeptical that we’d be able to achieve this in any reasonable amount of time given the endless night-time drama we’ve endured but I have been pleasantly surprised. Our nights have gotten unbelievably better in a very short amount of time. We started with nights on Saturday. There was some crying. Sunday night seemed like non-stop crying between midnight and 5am (the book notes that the second night is often worse). Monday night brought some grunts and protests at 1:30am and then 5 minutes of crying at 3:30am. Last night I put Baby J to bed at 6:45pm. He fell asleep happily and peacefully within minutes. He cried for about 10 minutes at 8:30pm, sort of fussed in his sleep at 3am and then woke at 5am to eat. After I nursed him, he went back to sleep until 6:45 when he woke up cheerful and delighted with the day.

I can not tell you how thrilled we are to feel like we will have our lives back again. I feel hopeful for the first time in months. I know that once Baby J, T and I are well rested that our family will function more smoothly. We will be more patient, creative and proactive with our other two children. We’ll keep up on on household chores. I think life is going to be fun again!

In the meantime, I need to sleep train myself. My body has programmed itself to wake up automatically when Baby J did (10:30, 1:30, 3:30). The last few nights I’ve found myself wide awake while our reformed dictator slumbered peacefully in his crib!

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