Sleep, glorious sleep

I am utterly frustrated with my almost 10-month-old son. He won't sleep! It seems like everyone else's child has been sleeping through the night since birth, so I decided to channel my frustration for good and start this blog. Surely, there are others who have the same issues I have and misery loves company!

First, I would like to start out saying that I love my little boy more than anything and anyone on this earth. He has a great personality and is pretty laid back. And don't even get me started on that smile and laugh! Our only issue is bedtime. He goes to bed fine, but then he's up 4, 5, 6 or more times during the night. I have started to dread bedtime! Many nights my husband and I just give up and bring him into bed with us, but recently that is not even working. Tonight we decided to try the Farber method. We have tried letting him "cry it out" before, but I think by having a deadline at which you can enter the room it makes the crying more bearable. We went about our normal bedtime routine except instead of rocking him for 20 ore more minutes I rocked him until his blinks got longer and slower and then put him into his crib awake. He cried, of course (and at times screamed)! It was heartbreaking to listen to him cry like that. He was obviously distressed and when I went in to check on him at the 5 minute interval he clung to my arm as I tried to lay him back down (because he was standing at the rail of his crib screaming). I patted and rubbed him and gave him his binky and musical horsey and left. More screaming. By this time, I wanted to cry and scream myself, but I also need sleep. I took our video monitor to my room and grabbed a glass of red wine. I just stared at the monitor like it was some sort of bizarre show. I thought, "what kind of mother am I that I can just sit here and watch him scream?" Then I rationalized that it was better to keep watching him in case he became daring and tried to climb out of the crib. Eventually, after 30 minutes of crying he fell asleep. Whew!

At 12:15 he was awake again. My dear husband took this shift and worked with him for 30 minutes again. My adrenaline was racing because I could hear him screaming down the hall and all I wanted to do was go pick him up and comfort him. At last, he was asleep again. 3:15, my little darling wakes up again. I grabbed the spare binky I keep on my night stand (he always seems to knock them out of his crib and onto the floor which I promptly kick under it as I shuffle through in my sleepy haze). I went in and lay him down from the standing position gave him his binky and horsey, told him I loved him and left. He cried (are you surprised?) This time though he didn't cry long enough that I even had to go back in. Watching him in the monitor I could see him in his crib, holding his horsey with his head bobbing around. He was so tired he couldn't even sit up straight! At that moment he just fell over onto the mattress and I could hear him exhale an exhausted breath. If I hadn't heard that I would have run up to check on him for fear that something was wrong (did I mention I'm paranoid). He woke up a couple times and cried, but just for a minute and went back to sleep. In fact, I'm still up writing this blog as my kid sleeps...what am I doing? Good night!