July 1, 2010

sleep battle

it's time.
time for kullen to sleep in his own crib, all night.
when kullen was first born, he was in the basinet next to my bed ... eventually, that turnd into IN my bed. and yes, before all you non-parents sit there and say 'my kid will never end up in my bed' - i said the SAME thing. i had heard of parents not being able to break their kid of it and thought it was ridiculous that their kid was even IN their bed to begin with and yet when i was in the parent shoes - my how things changed. not only do you love that tiny little baby more than ANYTHING - you are SLEEP DEPRIVED. if the only way you can get sleep is to have them in bed with you, believe me - you'll do it.
finally - when kullen was able to sleep through the night - he went back to the basinet but probably still ended up in our bed majority of the time. i just love having him there, he's a good little cuddler - plus, it's the cutest thing when they wake up and crawl all over you to wake you up!
anyway - so, once kullen outgrew his basinet - we set the pack n play up beside my bed because i still wasn't ready for him to be in a whole seperate room! he slept in there great. hardly ended up in our bed, except for weekends when he would wake up at 6am and i knew putting him with me would allow us both to sleep for 2 more hours!
well - after much persuasion from hubby - and friends/family - i decided it was time to put kullen in his own room. so, our nightly routine became him falling asleep in our bed and moving him to his crib. all worked well except for the fact that he would wake up every night - different times - and i would go get him and bring him back into our bed to continue our peaceful slumber.
well, i still don't personally mind him in my bed, but i know this has to be stopped now because it's only going to get harder and harder.
so, after talking with our pediatrician and a good friend for some advice, we have a plan. and last night was night 1 of said plan.
kullen got his bath and pjs. we made him his sippy and him and i went into his room and shut the door. i sat in the rocker with him and read him a story, while he drank his sippy. now, some nights he is sooo tired he will fall asleep during his sippy/bottle - those are the easy nights. last night was not. after he finished, i put him in his crib, turned the monitor on and left him. he was okay for the first 5 or so minutes but then he began to cry. and cry. and cryyyyy. my husband started to walk in there at one point and i stopped him reminding him we had to be strong. well, a few minutes later - i went in there. i just had to make sure he wasn't stuck between the bars of his crib or whatever! so, there he was .. bawling his little eyeballs out and reaching up for me. i picked him up and rocked him a bit - and his eyes rolled back and so i put him in the crib. nope, not happening - he was sitting up, crying again. so i laid him back down and stepped back ... this happened about 20 times - with him crying the entire time. finally, i kissed him and laid him down once more and walked out of the room. i sat outside his door, listening and he was crying but it was slowly fading to a wimper. finally, it was quiet. after 10 or so minutes, i crept in there just to be sure he was okay - and sure enough, he was soundly sleeping.
this was the first part of the plan. making him go to sleep, in his crib, on his own. success.

the next step was to set a time - a time that if he woke up after, we would go get him. so i set the time for 12-12:30. so, he woke up around 11ish crying .. i went to the bathroom and when i came back, he was not crying anymore so i went back to sleep. he woke up again around 12ish so i went and picked him up, rocked him for a while and tried to put him back in the crib. the minute i tried to lay him down, his eyes were WIDE open and i knew this wasn't going to happen. meaning - FAIL. i gave in and brought him back to bed with me.
FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

so, tonight - we will try again.
if ... er, WHEN he wakes up - i will NOT go get him. i will let him cry. UNLESS - he cries for more than 30 minutes straight, then i will go get him, of couse.
i'll post details tomorrow.
wish us luck!

PS - MY BABY SISTER GOT HER LICENSCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GO ZANNIE!!!! :D

1 comment:

Joy@TPMG said...

Good luck tonight! It is hard when they cry but he'll be okay. We did it with our daughters and after a few nights they soothed themselves to sleep. Congrats to your sister on getting her license.