Beginning to Break Bad Sleep Habits

We're trying something new. I'm reading this book called, "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" by Dr. Ferber. He does sleep study research. It's an interesting book even if you don't have children because he talks about the science of sleep and sleep cycles. From what I've concluded (by only reading the first several chapters) is that the Bear doesn't have any sleep disorders; it's his sleep associations that cause him to wake up in the middle of the night well, not wake up, that's normal, but stay up. This is a typical bedtime:

Nurse on the futon, fall asleep. Silently walk out of the room.

I have been leaving him on the futon because usually when I place him in the crib he automatically wakes up. But now he's crawling. We have a little gate on the side of the futon but not at the foot. Someday he's gonna sleepcrawl right off to a rude awakening. No one wants that. No one wants a sleepy, grouchy Mama either so there's another reason for this new routine. I tried for the life of me following the steps to the "No Cry Sleep Solution" that I've written about here, here, here, here and here but I couldn't do it. It seemed like I wasn't making ANY progress. You can see the low-tech bar graphs I made and they all look the same! I was so determined to make it work. The one thing that I took away from that is not falling asleep while nursing. We've stopped doing that. Yay for something accomplished!!! (Pats herself on tired, pitiful back.)

I was sifting through my stack of baby and parenting books that have seemed to pile up and got rid of 4 good ones to my co-worker who is having her first baby in September (Yay!) and found the Sleep Problems book which was actually recommended to me by my friend Anne-Michelle while I was pregnant. I even listed it in this post. She even wrote this advice along with the recommendation: (great to read before the baby comes, so you can see what bad habits not to get stuck with). I'm kicking myself for not taking that advice because this would have been a great one to read ahead of time. It's easier to create healthy routines from the get go rather than break ingrained habits and make changes after the fact. TRUST ME. This is hard. The method in this book, I think, is also the one that people refer to as the "crying it out method" although he doesn't refer to it as that. What I like about this book, besides all the research and sleep science is that he doesn't pussyfoot around about what you're going to do and what might happen. For some reason, I trust that this is going to work. Also, my friend Anne-Michelle used this method with her three lovely children and they all sleep through the night and don't seem like disturbed humans. I actually tried starting this on a Thursday night without talking to Mike about it other than saying, I'm trying this method from this book. Obviously I needed to have a more in depth conversation because when Stan Bear started crying and I wasn't going to him Mike was like, "So, what are you doing?" He was obviously concerned about the Bear but I felt unsupported and realized that I needed his full support if this was going to work. So I decided that we would do the old school routine for two more nights. After the Bear went to sleep that night I explained to Mike what the routine was and how I needed his support because not going to a crying baby is heartwrenching and makes my stomach hurt and I can't help but feel like I am a shitty parent, pardon my french. In the long run we will all be better rested and happier. I just know it.

I will keep you updated!

P.S. I've got a good progress report for you! Coming soon!