I forgot about the other item on our Action Plan: self-soothing. We've been putting him to bed when he's asleep, not when he's sleepy. Doc thinks it's time to start letting him learn to put himself to sleep.
So to that end, this morning, about the time he would usually be falling asleep in the jogging stroller on our morning walk-jog-walk, I put him in the playpen, surrounded him with toys, wheeled it into the spare room where the treadmill is, and proceeded to work out. For his part, he proceeded to scream. I periodically told him it was OK, and suggested he practice rolling over before he flattened his skull out any more. At twelve minutes, he stopped screaming and examined his hands. At thirteen and a half minutes, he resumed screaming. At half an hour, I gave up, conveniently using the screaming as an excuse to stop huffing and puffing.
When I picked him up, he continued screaming, but after about a minute and a half of forced pacifier usage, he was asleep. He stayed asleep long enough for me to shower, but now he's awake and staring off into space with the haunted look of someone with post-traumatic stress disorder. I'm really not looking forward to this self-soothing project.
So here's what I'm thinking. He now gets six five-ounce bottles a day, usually around every three hours, give or take from about 7:30am to 8 or 9:30pm. So that's thirty ounces. I wonder if we do four eight-ounce bottles a day, if we can get him the last one early enough in the evening to give us a few hours to work on the self-soothe thing before it's the wee hours and we're all resentful-like.
What do you/did you guys do and/or think about the different sleep theories? Cry it out? Co-sleep (that one's not gonna happen)? Let him work it out, but go in and soothe him every now and then, briefly and boringly? I imagine we'll be doing the last one. But putting him to bed after he's fallen asleep on us is so temptingly easy.
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9 comments:
How many months is Thumper now?
4 on Saturday.
Okay, for the feeding, you can definitely transition him to the 4 x 8oz bottles. All 3 of my kids were on that feeding schedule at 4 months. It worked well.
The sleeping - oh, dear Rodius, I know it does no good to look back ("start where the client is") but I fear you are going to have a tough time of it if you have been mainly putting him to bed already asleep for almost 4 months.
Of course kids are very adaptable and I have no doubt that he will adjust...just that it is likely you are going to have several very miserable days, between trying to get him to sleep on his own and then combatting the inevitable over-tiredness from his rage against the solo sleeping machine.
I am a large fan of crying it out with compassion - I would go in every 15 minutes and reassure with a soothing word and tap on the back and then leave again. Whatever you do, do not, I repeat DO NOT, pick up the baby when you are crying it out. It reinforces the behavior.
I know some people think crying it out is cruel and unusual punishment, yadda yadda yadda, but I did it with all 3. My problem was never getting them to fall asleep on their own, rather keeping them IN their bed/room when they were old enough to leave the crib. But that's a story in another 2 years for you...
I could never do the crying it out thing, because it just never worked for us. Joe-Henry would get so completely overwraught, that it wound him up instead of down. We tried it for weeks. I couldn't take it after that. I would go snuggle him until he was nearly asleep, then I'd leave, but that didn't happen until he was older. I know there are people who will tell you that you aren't doing your child any favors by doing it this way, but to counteract it all, I've been socking away pennies for his therapy fund.
I'm with Tracey on this one--a few miserable crying times (punctuated by the comforting brief visit) is worth the reward of having a baby who knows that a bed is for sleeping.
About that flat head business. Can you get him to sleep on his side by propping his back with a firm pillow? Oh, it may be too late for that, though I've seen it help a lot of flat-headed infants. Soon enough Thumper will be sleeping any darn way he wants to!
I think adjusting the feedings will also help you get a schedule that works for all three of you. You guys are doing great . . .love from the Grandma.
I'm also going to whisper something else to you, and you can take it or leave it, just don't report me to CPS...
I let all 3 of my kids sleep on their stomachs.
GASP. I can hear the horrified "oh no she didn't!"s all over the internet. But after I had my first child with colic and I toughed out 7 weeks of utterly, and I mean TOTALLY sleepless nights, I found that the only time my wailing 18-hours-a-day (you think I exaggerate. I don't) son settled down was on his stomach.
Then I had my 2nd son prematurely, and after he shrieked in pain every time I put him in the prone position, even my pediatrician (after witnessing this) promptly put him on drugs for his severe GERD and said to let him sleep on his stomach. He said it wasn't unusual for premature babies to not be able to tolerate the prone position.
By the time the 3rd came along, I didn't even look for an excuse. I just let her sleep on her stomach.
I know, I know. You probably won't do it because you're a responsible parent. I'm just saying...if it gets desperate, desperate times call for desperate action.
My kids are awesome sleepers (TR can attest to this- she has firsthand knowledge) and both of them have fallen asleep on their own since the age of 2-3 months old. Even now, when they are asleep, I can go into their rooms, put clothes away, pick up toys, or show them off to whole parties of visitors, and the most they do is move around in their beds, maybe blink their eyes. My best advice is to pick your sleep training method and then stick with it. I was never a fan of CIO; I used the pat, pat, shh, shh method. I am also a firm believer in routine for all children. We do the SAME routine wherever we are, even when traveling and the kids are so used to that routine, that they fall asleep everywhere, even in the same hotel room with mommy, daddy, auntie, cousins, etc. For us, that routine starts with bath, then books, then bed. When Sam was a baby (he is 1.5 now), I would rock and sing to him for a few minutes, just to calm him down and get him to a drowsy state, then I was put him in his bed, pat his back for a few minutes, and walk out the door. I also found that putting a worn Tshirt of mine in the bed with him helped- then he would have my "smell" near him. HTH and good luck, Lisa
Thanks for the feedback, y'all. We'll try the crying it out with compassion version, but I've been too chicken to try it so far. We've upped the tummy time, upped the bottle volume, upped the self-entertainment time, so I don't want to dump too much change on him at once. Plus, like I said, I'm chicken. Maybe next week.
I recommend a book called "Little People" by Edward Christopersen. It has a marvelous underlying philosophy about self-quieting and "time-in" which is great to have when one is parenting children of any age. It describes an approach to parenting that is a super-great balance between being there for your kids while allowing them the space to take care of themselves appropriately. There are recommended frameworks--for creating effective sleep patterns, facilitating good playtime, and effecting appropriate discipline--that are so practical and useful over time that my beautifully poised teenage daughter has bragged to her friends more than once, that she's "never been punished..." It was a huge help to me.
Good luck.
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