Week 18 - The Great Sleep Battle Rages On

Now that we have come to terms with the fact that our daughter has become a horrible sleeper (and in turn we are sleeping horribly) we decided to stop whining and do something about it. So, we dug our heels in and began to research. Why isn't she sleeping through the night anymore, after sleeping beautifully for over a month? And more importantly, how do we fix it?

In the first few months of life, all the books and experts profess that you can't spoil an infant. Pick her up when she's crying - she just wants comfort! Let her sleep whenever she's tired - babies need a lot of sleep! Let her eat when she acts hungry - she has a tiny tummy; she's acting hungry for a reason! When you ignore these things and don't respond to her needs, your child feels as though she can't depend on you. But through our recent research we have discovered that all of this touchy-feely "you can't spoil a baby" stuff is now over. Just like that! They become 3-4 months old and suddenly it's a whole new ballgame. Don't pick her up when she's crying - it encourages her to cry! Don't let her sleep whenever she's tired - put her on a schedule! Don't let her eat whenever she acts hungry - she is just nursing for comfort! WHAT?! How do things change that quickly?

According to many experts, Marty and I are pretty much doing everything wrong when it comes to Ellie's sleep. We're encouraging poor sleeping habits and are practically begging for her to have sleep issues for life! Experts advise that you should not nurse, rock or do anything to get your baby to fall asleep because they won't develop the ability to soothe themselves and put themselves to sleep. Therefore when they wake up, they can’t put themselves BACK to sleep. We have nursed or rocked Ellie to sleep every night since birth! How on earth do we stop doing that?!

There are tons of theories about how to "teach your child to sleep". Put your baby to bed when she's drowsy but awake. Stand over her, rub her belly and "shoosh" her. Leave her room and come in and check on her every ten minutes until she falls asleep. Pick her up, soothe her then put her back down (PI/PD) then repeat until she's asleep. Let her 'cry it out'(CIO) until she passes out with exhaustion. Seriously there are hundreds of books professing hundreds of sure-fire ways to get your baby to be able to soothe herself to sleep, which will in turn make her sleep through the night. All the methods are different but they agree on one thing: don’t soothe your child to sleep, let her soothe herself. Perhaps the reason Ellie is not sleeping through the night anymore is because we have not allowed her to develop the ability to soothe herself.

However, I think that all of these methods of teaching your child to sleep are designed for babies who are "less intense" than Ellie. If we lay Ellie down in the crib and stand over her, she practically turns blue from all the crying and you can pretty much hear her screaming through those eyes pleading "PICK ME UP! WHY ARE YOU STANDING THERE STARRING AT ME AND NOT PICKING ME UP?! DON'T YOU LOVE ME ANYMORE?!?". I can't even hear myself shoosh over her screaming. It's just too heartbreaking for her and us.

The pick up/put down method doesn't really work because when she's put down she works herself up so much that by the time you pick her up she won't calm down. But leaving the room to just let her cry it out makes her so mad - the way she screams you'd think that someone was trying to saw her arm off and it makes Marty and me feel awful.

Now I realize that you're meant to do these things several nights, even weeks, in a row before they work. I just don't know that have the heart to listen to my baby wail for 2-3 hours straight night after night until she finally learns how to soothe herself. It's emotionally and physically draining and after two weeks of sleep deprivation, too much stress!

We tried a combo of all of these methods on Monday night and it took over two hours to get her to fall asleep. Then she woke up three hours later and using all these methods, it took her two hours to fall back asleep. The frustrating thing is that if I fed her, she'd probably have fallen back asleep in 20 minutes. But if I feed her to sleep, I am enforcing horrible sleep habits that will ruin her life! (Am I being extreme? Just read the books.) On Tuesday, she was tired, but not overly so, and I just put her down in the crib gave her a kiss and left. And a funny thing happened. She didn’t cry! She just fell asleep – and slept through the night! Ok, maybe those experts are on to something. For the next three nights, we put her down when she was tired but awake. Some nights she cried for a few minutes, others she didn’t. But every night she fell asleep within 10 minutes and slept through the night.

Inevitably, of course, this bliss did not last. For the past two nights she’s woken up in the middle of the night. But now that her parents are a little more rested, it doesn’t seem like as big of a deal to get up. And she is going down for the night SO much easier, we feel as though we have won at least half of the battle. For this week anyway! The lesson here is, with sleep, anything is manageable. Without it, we are doomed.