Tackling the bedtime drama

So we have been struggling with sleep over here in our happy little house.  I had never seen a problem before with the fact that my little man was nursing to sleep.  Heck, I was thrilled that I could fill his tummy and make him feel safe and comfortable in my arms to completely and utterly pass out.  When I would talk with other mamas, and they would mention that they were starting to sleep train, I looked at them like they were growing a third eye.  That's not to say I didn't understand.  I did.  And there was a point in which I thought we should maybe try that.  And  we did - for part of one night.  Needless to say it was traumatic for myself, and maybe a little on Justin.  It's hard to sit there and listen to your baby cry.  I had read a few books and articles that talked about different techniques and methods to this, and none of the "minimal cry" methods seemed very Jayce friendly.  They talked about checking on him in intervals, but not touching him.  This only seemed to get him more worked up to the point of gagging on his tears.  We promptly put an end to that.

 

Then the surgery happened, and we were just in uber-comfort mode.  All he wanted to do was cuddle since he wasn't feeling well, and we were all too happy to give him those cuddles. 

 Then we flew to Chicago, and he was uprooted from all of the surroundings he had come to feel comfortable in.  So we he spent the trip sleeping with us in bed - not ideal by a long shot, but it allowed him, us, and all the other people in the house to get a few decent hours of sleep at night.

When we got home, it was maybe two nights of wonderful, amazing, and glorious sleep...till Jayce cut his first tooth.

Well that tooth is out, and he had started to play this game of "I'm asleep from nursing, and you can't wake me up...until you go to lay me in my crib, then I'm going to scream and scream, and only mommy can comfort me".  Justin and I looked at each other and knew it was time to teach this little man to put himself to sleep, and we were just going to let him cry.

 

So we waited until Sunday night - I had Monday off of work, and Justin was going to be home for the bedtime shenanigans (I didn't think I was going to be able to be strong enough to do this alone, without him in the house).  I nursed J-man, and talked to him about what was going to happen (quite clearly more for me than for him), and just as he was passing out in my arms, I placed him gently in the crib.  No sooner than I had righted myself, he was in a full blown pissed off scream.  I told him I loved him, and sweet dreams, and as calmly, as I could I turned around, turned out the light, and walked out of the room - reiterating how much I loved him. 

It was the single most difficult thing I have consciously done.

 

30 minutes later he was asleep.  It was an incredibly difficult 30 minutes, but at the same time I"m grateful it was only 30 minutes.  The glorious part, he slept through the night, a full 11.5 hours!!!! It had been since before the surgery that he had slept through without waking up at least once to scream at us and remind us he was still in the house (no Jayce, we haven't forgotten you are two rooms away, we could never forget).  We repeated this process Monday night, again, asleep after about 30 minutes of crying.  Tonight, only 20 minutes!!!!! 

 

Here's to hoping it continues to get better, with shorter and shorter bouts of crying.

On another note, the second bottom tooth is making its way up, and I predict that it will break the surface by the end of the weekend. (hopefully he doesn't feel the need to pierce me with this one too)