Because I Said So
My life as a Mom

Day 3 of of Project Ferber, and the magnificent Pickle put himself to sleep without crying!!!

Yeah, I’m still reeling.

Night one: 45 minutes of crying, 1 wakeup w/ 60 minutes of crying

Night two: 30 minutes of crying, 1 wakeup (put himself back to sleep)

Night three: NO CRYING AT ALL!!! Number and quality of wakeups remains to be seen.

And oh my god, his mood has been *so* *much* *better*.  It’s like night and day - the cranky little demon we’ve been living with for the past month is gone and my sweet wonderful baby has returned.  I hereby apologize for every smug skeptical comment I have ever made about sleep training.  Sleep training ROCKS.

And after the first night, seems to be a success (knock wood).  Pickle fell asleep at 8:30 after about 45 minutes of crying, woke up at 1 and cried for another hour, then slept until 7 and woke up in the best mood I’ve seen him in ages first thing in the morning.  (He had been in the habit of waking up at 5:30am screaming.  Waking up at 7am quietly babbling is a massive improvement.)

Our downstairs neighbors haven’t left us any nasty notes, so either they prefer the sound of a crying baby to the sound of our rocking chair or they’ve simply decided never to speak with us again.  Ah well, c’est la vie.

Fingers are crossed that tonight will involve shorter periods of crying and continue the trend of waking only once (or not at all!) and sleeping until at least 6:30 and waking up happy.  Hm. I think I need more fingers. (more…)

Put Pickle to sleep last night. Five minutes later, hear crying. Wait it out. Doesn’t stop. Go in to rock him back to sleep….find him STANDING UP IN THE FRELLING CRIB.

Now, this isn’t the first time he’s pulled himself up to standing, or even the first time he’s done it in the crib. But it’s the first time he’s done it (a) at bedtime, (b) from lying down, and (c) wearing a sleepsack.

He’s napping now. As soon as he wakes up, we are going to Babies R Us and cleaning out their babyproofing section. Gates are going up EVERYWHERE. Padding will be afixed to the edges of EVERYTHING. (Meanwhile a part of me is thinking, wouldn’t it just be easier to cushion the baby?)

You see this recipe, and instantly think, “Ooh, my 7-month old would LOVE that!”

In other baby news, Little Pickle slept through the night last night (he only woke up at 5 because DH went in to check on him after HE woke up and realized that he’d skipped his usual midnight feeding), but woke up with a low-grade fever, almost certainly a side-effect of the flu shot & other vaccines he got yesterday. (And boy do I know that feeling. Being old enough to know I’m not actually sick doesn’t make the immune response feel any less crappy.) So I’m not holding my breath for a repeat performance tonight - I’d rather have him feeling well and waking up than feeling lousy and sleeping through, you know? DH stayed home with him and he’s been getting lots of love and infant Tylenol. Hopefully he’ll start feeling better by tomorrow.

When the Pickle was a newborn, my mother told me that when the four of us were babies, our sleep would always get screwy for a few days before a major milestone. I think she must have been onto something, because the Pickle has been working really hard on crawling the past few weeks, and just this weekend managed to push up onto his knees and scoot-crawl backwards. Not exactly what he was going for, but still very exciting! And last night, he slept almost straight through, waking up just twice to eat, and going back to sleep easily without a pacifier both times. (Yes, two easy wakings is “almost sleeping through” for us. It’s one waking each, meaning I got almost 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep last night. I call that a win.)

I also attribute some of this to my new policy (which I’m really following for real this time) of not going to get him unless he’s *actually crying*. I remain philosophically opposed to the “cry it out” method - I don’t want to teach him that I won’t come for him if he needs me - but letting him fuss it out is a whole nother matter. And I’ve been doing this for long enough now that I can hear the difference between “I’m hungry/scared/have flipped over and am stuck in the corner and can’t get out” and “I’m awake and bored and I bet if I yell loud enough I can get Mom to come in and feed me.” The first, I’ll respond to. The second - sorry kid, you’re on your own. Go back to sleep. And you know what? He does! What a good little boy I have.

I am about to do something stupid.

We were out running errands and came home about an hour later than the Pickle’s regular afternoon naptime. I’d been counting on him falling asleep while we were out and taking his nap on the run, but it didn’t work out that way, and so instead of going down at 3:30, he went down at 4:30 when we came home.

Now it’s 5:45 and he’s still asleep. Normally an extra-long nap would be cause for celebration, but this one is threatening to encroach on bedtime. Which means I’m about to break the cardinal rule of parenthood and wake him up so he’ll have time to eat and play and bathe and still go to bed more or less on time.

He’s gonna be pissed.

Oh well. Wish me luck!

[Update: He was actually awake and playing with the zipper on his sleepsack when I went in, just not making any noise. So all was well in the house of Pickle.]

Has any cliche made new parents laugh as wryly as the phrase “sleeping like a baby”? That mythical peaceful untroubled sleep…are there any babies who really sleep like that? That is, for more than 4 hours at a time? (There’s some comedian or movie which finished that line with “…I woke up every 2 hours crying for my mother.” It’s funny because it’s true!)

The Pickle goes to sleep easily - for that I’m thankful - but oh dear lord do I ever wish he’d stay asleep easily too! I haven’t slept more than 5 continuous hours in 6 months, and it’s seriously starting to take its toll.

If this article on sleep is accurate, I’ve regressed cognitively to approximately the level of a 3 year-old by now. Which I’m thinking makes me unqualified to care for a 6-month old, let alone hold down a full time job. Ah, well. (more…)