Noah Sleeps

We finally got Noah sleeping. It got bad again a few weeks ago with Noah waking up every hour or two, then nursing, then needing to be bounced back to sleep on our exercise ball. Noah wasn't sleeping. I wasn't sleeping. Alan wasn't sleeping. I just got so desperate for sleep, but still couldn't even think about letting him cry it out. I couldn't stand to think he was sad or scared or lonely. So we finally came up with a new idea. This is what we did: I would nurse him in his room, then lay him in his crib. We have a little frog that projects stars on to his ceiling and plays music, so then I'd turn that on. Then either Alan or I would stay in his room with him, singing to him and patting his back, just trying to comfort him in his crib, making sure that he could see us. He was upset at first, not really understanding why we wouldn't hold him like usual, but if he got too upset, I'd pick him up and snuggle him until he was calm, then lay him back down. The first night took an hour to get him to sleep, but he wasn't crying that whole time. Most of the time, he was just lying in his crib dosing, then popping his head up to make sure someone was still with him. I felt that it was very important for him to know that we weren't abandoning him, that we'd pick him up if he really needed us. It helped for me to know that he was okay, too.

We did the same thing in the middle of the night--Just comforted him, stayed with him when he woke up, then left once he fell asleep again. The first night, he only woke up one time. He was up for a while, but did fall back to sleep eventually. We did the same thing the second night and he fell asleep within a half an hour and only woke up one time, for just a couple of minutes in the middle of the night. The third night was twenty minutes to fall asleep, one cry in the middle of the night where we just gave him his pacifier and left. The fourth night was amazing. I nursed him, laid him in his crib awake, stayed for a couple of minutes, then left. No crying, just sleeping. Hallelujah!

I just couldn't bring myself to let him CIO, but we were desperate for more sleep. I would have been fine with him sleeping in bed with us if he would have slept. But Noah wouldn't sleep at all, unless he was on top of someone, and he still woke up all the time and needed to be put back to sleep. He wouldn't sleep in our bed, no matter how much I wanted him to. I just wasn't working for us and more importantly, it wasn't working for him. He was tired and cranky. Now everyone is getting more sleep, feeling happier and Noah has learned to self-soothe. Of course yesterday he got Pink Eye and a cold, so I'm sure it will all go out the window, but at least we know that good sleep is still possible. That's not something I could have said last month!