So here's how it went:
6:30: Wind down time. Murray and I take Gulliver for a walk so that he gets fresh air and we get a little exercise.
7:15: Gulliver gets a bath by Murray while I prepare his bedroom so that it is a tidy, sleep-inducing place of serenity.
7:30: I nurse Gulliver while Murray reads a story. Gulliver falls completely asleep. I can't remember what my book says about nursing to sleep at night, so I have Murray fetch the book, but I can't find what it said. So we decided since he was asleep anyway, we'd just put him down sleeping. We put him in his crib, he continues to sleep, and we quietly sing "It's in Every One of Us," since we'd like that to be a part of the sleep ritual.
8:00: We come downstairs and start making dinner.
8:15: Gulliver wakes up and starts to cry. We ignore, but it is extremely painful. I hate it, hate it, hate it. We get dinner ready and put on a movie. For the most part, the air conditioning and movie drown out the crying sounds. Which makes me even sadder and more guilty that I'm drowning out the sounds of my crying babe.
9:15: Gulliver stops crying. Wow! We did it! We've arrived! We now have a baby on a perfect sleep schedule!
9:16: I start to think that I need to just check on him, because what if we actually let our baby cry himself to death!? (See this post.) I tiptoe up the stairs. I carefully and almost noiselessly turn the knob of his bedroom door and open the door ever so slightly. I squeeze my body into the room so that I can get a look at my child, and what I see is the saddest, most pathetic thing I have ever laid eyes upon. There was my baby, sitting right up against the crib bars, slumped over, head resting on the crib bars. What do you even do in a situation like that? You can't in good conscience just let him sleep like that, can you? So I make a move to go into the room a little farther, and his head pops up immediately! Maybe he wasn't sleeping at all! Maybe he had just given up on the crying, but wasn't actually asleep! In any case, he saw me, which basically makes it impossible for me to leave him alone in his room again.
9:17: I come down the stairs with Gulliver.
10:00: Gulliver nurses himself into a deep sleep. I hold him for an entire half an hour as penitence for the horrible mistreatment of earlier in the night.
10:30: I put Gulliver down in his crib. He's there for the night.
So during the night, Gulliver woke up and cried out a few times, but was never crying for more than five minutes, so I never went to him. I'm really pleased about this, and it gives me hope. What I'm not pleased about is how many times I woke up during the night and went to the room to see if he was still alive. I did not get a good night's rest. I clearly have to get used to my baby sleeping in the other room. It did not help that I also had nightmares that Murray and I were kidnapped and held in this awful, dirty apartment, and had to find a way to get rescued, and we could see and hear the people who were trying to rescue us, but they couldn't find us. (Please note: The separation of me and Murray from Gulliver, due to kidnappers. Also note: Seeing and hearing the people who are trying to rescue us is like Gulliver being able to hear us in the house, but we never go to him. So cruel!!)
7:00: Gulliver woke up on his own (at 6:58) and was crying, but this time I went to him because it was time to get up.
THE END (of day 1, beginning of day 2)
7 comments:
That's lame about the baby against the bars and the nightmares. I hope you sleep better tonight.
i hope it goes well for you guys. we used the cry it out method and it really only took 2 nights for them to get it. it is so hard to hear the cries, but i think it really works. i don't remember what book you said you had, but we liked healthy sleep habits, happy child.
good luck!
oh yes...making eye contact is the WORST. seeing that red face absolutely soaked by huge tears...almost as bad as the boy who is giggling and smiling being put down wide awake and the look of horror on his face when he realizes you've just set him down and are actually preparing to LEAVE HIM ALONE in that state. trauma!
I was going to say on the last post that I agree with Azucar about pushing bedtime back gradually. I also am a wimp and took a long time sleep training because I wouldn't let them cry longer than five minutes or so. I'd go back in, pat their back, and then leave again.
Good luck! I hate letting them cry- but it really does work.
I hear you on how hard it is to let them cry--and how their little head pops up when they hear the slightest sound at the door. My little miss Lauren is not sleeping through the night yet and I'm afraid I might have to let her cry it out one of these nights, but I'm dreading it. Hang in there! It will only take a few nights, and really, if it helps you to go and check on him (as furtively as possible), I say do it.
Oh, I HATE that stage. I feel your pain.
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