This morning I'm thankful that Luke got to see Liam before he left for work. Some days (like yesterday) he has to leave before the boy wakes up, and the boy is in bed before he gets home.
But this morning our boy woke up at 4:30 (!) and was WIDE AWAKE. A little pat-pat and "it's time to sleep" was not doing it for him. After a while we decided to cut our losses and just go cuddle.
So, it's no secret that we've had trouble with sleep. Waking every two hours. Short naps. Fighting every attempt to put him down. I tell myself that it's not that he's a bad sleeper, or that he doesn't like sleep, it's just that he likes being awake and seeing what's going on more. He likes to be with us.
(And all of you with perfect little sleepers, I'm not saying that your baby doesn't like to be with you.)
We finally got so desperate decided that Liam needed more of a chance to settle himself. (Read: we let him cry.) It was so so so so so crappy and hard. But it helped like nothing else had. So we aren't sorry we did it.
Around the same time that we started our night-sleep intervention (or lack there-of) Liam started extending his naps. Some days he even sleeps for TWO AND A HALF HOURS in the morning. Shock and awe.
Acknowledging that a "perfect" sleep situation would not be a reasonable expectation for us at this point, I will say that we are in a good place. Because he sleeps! Sometimes his naps are short, but he doesn't fight with me when I put him down. Sometimes he wakes up at random hours, but that is becoming the exception instead of the rule. What felt like chaos and left me completely uncertain before is slowly transforming into cycles and routines that I can (generally) count on and work around.
And I am so thankful for that.
4 comments:
SO glad things are settling a bit. Thank you for sharing your story, Mary.
I totally felt the same way with Brecken. He wasn't a good sleeper, which was made worse by the fact that he was horribly grumpy when he was tired. So eventually we had to become those "mean parents" that let him cry it out and honestly, it was like a miracle. Sometimes the long-term benefits beat out the short-term cons. :)
You will be thankful for years to come. Teaching a baby, while they are still young, the skill of sleeping, and how to fall asleep is priceless. Good for you for cracking down. That just means that you are a really good mom.
yay!!!! I am so happy for you guys:) it makes me smile.
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