When we first had Mason I think I read about every book I could get my hands on. I stressed about scheduling, getting him to sleep at night, what was I supposed to do?! Why did this baby not come with a sleep manual?! I felt like the number 1 question people asked was "how is he sleeping at night? Is he sleeping through the night?" If we said no we got that look of pity. It was almost like whether we had a "good baby" depended on if our baby slept through the night. I hated that feeling. Luckily my pediatrician was so wonderful letting us know that she didn't want us to sleep train until he was a little older & not to worry about it. Oh how I wished I would have taken that advice! I am a type A person so I continued to scour books and feel guilty when we would tell people no, our son wasn't sleeping through the night like maybe I was already failing as a mom?! So new moms out there.....if your baby does not sleep through the night it does not mean your baby isn't a "good baby" don't let anyone make you feel that way!! Just like with anything, babies have to be taught how to sleep and they just aren't ready to when they are itty bitty.
So our sleep training adventure started when mason was about 3 months old. Because we had a hard time with finding the right fit for his acid reflux medicine his pediatrician had us keep him in his rock & play until about 2.5 months then we transitioned into his crib. After we got him in his crib we realized we had developed a monster of a problem. We LOVED rocking mason to sleep. We both felt like rocking our sweet sleeping baby was the best feeling in the world! UNTIL that was the only way our baby wanted to sleep. We would rock and rock and rock and he would be passed out asleep then we would lay him in his crib and I swear he would open his eyes the second his body hit the mattress. One Sunday night after a combined total of maybe 2 hours of sleep and 8 hours of rocking we decided there has to be a different way! So we started to read about how to make it happen. There are so many different methods out there we just felt lost!! I knew that the one method I could not do was the extinction method where you just say goodnight and let them cry until they go to sleep and don't go back until the morning. I know there are some moms out there that do and that's ok, it's just not something that was going to work for Blake & I. As we read through our Baby 411 book we first found out that babies can get overtired and not sleep well...what in the world?! That's a thing?! The more tired you are the better you sleep is how we thought it worked. So we decided to move his schedule up a little to get him in bed earlier & I'll be darned if they weren't right about the overtired business. Still baffled by this! We then found a method that worked for us. We would let him cry for 2 minutes go in comfort then 5 comfort then 10. I believe it's called the Ferber method. So we tried that and it seemed to work for us. Well it worked at night. Then during the day he would wake up from his naps & I was going to make darn sure the child wasn't overtired so I would end up just holding him for lots of naps. I justified that he needed me & I needed him since I was going to work soon. Those were my favorite days we would just lay and snuggle every nap time! Things were going great UNTIL he started waking up from 1-3:30am every night. WHAT?! I was dying I held him all day & then we were up taking turns for 2.5 hours. That did not bring out the best in any of us!!! I remember one night Blake saying can you go get him & I thought I was thinking in my head but it came out of my mouth "no, sorry I just don't want to." Oops!! God bless that man he said simply ok & got up and went and put him back to sleep. He is a man of extreme patience & I am daily blessed by that. It was July 1st when I finally said enough is enough I can't survive like this but don't know what to do!! So I called the pediatrician. I felt completely ridiculous going in because I didn't know how to put my son to bed but Blake was leaving for the following week for work & I knew I could not survive doing it alone for 1 week holding a baby all day and being awake for 2.5 hours at night because a nap wasn't going to happen during the day, remember my kids sixth sense thing?
So of course she told me that my baby was spoiled. I mean yes, I already knew this. The child stopped crying the second I opened the door to go pick him up. She gave us a few methods we could try. One was to sleep in the room and slowly move further away each night until you are out of the room. Let's just say sitting in the same room with a baby who is screaming and you are standing there saying it's ok don't cry but not picking them up, that's just torture for everyone! I wasn't about to do that, my heart would have broken and we would still be in the same boat. Actually we'd probably all just be in the same bed. So we settled for the second method: Continue the schedule: Bath at 7, feed at 7:30 & bedtime after that. However, no more rocking to sleep. Put him in the crib sleepy & calm and walk out. When he cries wait 5 minutes and go in. Pick up calm down put back down. Then 10 minutes, then 15 minutes, then every 20 minutes. At first I was thinking 20 minutes?! I can't do that. Thankfully I think my son knew that because we have never had to do more than 10 minutes. She said the first 3 nights would be the hardest but it would get easier each night. I asked about naptime and she said no more holding for naps, if he woke up and wouldn't go back to sleep then he was up & he would learn that he was too tired and nap better next time. I think our pediatrician is the best in the world! She's been so amazing to us so I just decided to trust her & as hard as it was to do, I knew I had to do it for both his & my sanity when Blake was out of town. We left the dr. that day & I didn't put him in the crib once. I was determined to hold him every second of that day & start sleep training that night. He did surprisingly well that weekend & on July 4th he started sleeping through the night. We didn't actually think the timing through as we were stuck at home during the 4th of July weekend & the madness of fireworks around us being so loud but it didn't seem to bother him & as I said, sanity was more important for us at that time.
Thankfully this process worked for us! Mason has slept through the night (7:30-5:30/6:30) for the last 18 consecutive nights, with the exclusion of 1 night where he woke up at 12 and we put his paci in and he went straight back to sleep. He actually now prefers to put himself to sleep. When we rock him we know when he wants to be put his in crib because he starts thrashing around and when we lay him down he goes straight to sleep.
I have to completely brag on Blake because he was an amazing help through it all! He was having to go to work every day & then he was doing the waking up with him in the night most of the time so Mason wouldn't have the expectation of eating when he saw me (because we were told he doesn't need night feedings anymore either). I truly realize every day I hit the jackpot with that man!
I also owe a huge thank you to my friends Lynzi & Lauren who have baby boys themselves and have been some of my biggest supporters as we went through sleep training & as we continue to go through other milestones. It's through our friendships that I have realized that this is just part of the process & having a baby who doesn't always sleep through the night doesn't make you failing at motherhood or make your baby a "hard" or "bad" baby. It just makes them a normal baby!
My biggest advice to myself for my next baby: relish the quiet night feedings where it's just you and your baby & the times your baby wakes up at night & just needs you to rock them or comfort them. It doesn't last forever & in the grand scheme of life it just a blink of an eye & it's over. Those are some of the sweetest moments & while I'm so glad Mase is sleeping so great, I do miss the quiet nights where the world is asleep and it was just me & my baby boy bonding.
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