Friday, April 2, 2010

It's time to sleep train. Part 1

I honestly never knew how challenging sleep would be with Jake. I anticipated the sleepless nights, and getting up at night when Jake was a newborn. I also could handle the nighttime nursing sessions as he got older. However, I could not handle this new curve ball that Jake threw at us this month.

He would no longer fall asleep. It was taking hours to put him down, not only for bedtime, but also for naps. When Jake was about 6-7 months old, I stopped being able to nurse or rock him to sleep. He just would not settle. I'm talking pinching, biting, hair pulling,mouth grabbing, back stretching, I will not sleep. Then, I laid him in bed with me and let him fall asleep next to me. That went out the window in the past few weeks since Jake is now mobile. On top of the previous pinching, hair pulling, mouth grabbing, stretching, we had rolling, crawling and bouncing.

Now, lets add a double ear infection and four top teeth. Sleep? Forget about it. We started co-sleeping. Now, Nick and I sleep in a double bed. We barely have enough room for the two of us, much less Jacob. At first, Nick slept on the couch while Jake and I slept in bed. Then, we pulled out the futon in Jake's room and Nick got the bed back. Well, Jake started refusing to sleep in his crib. I mean, even if he was sound asleep in my arms, he would scream as soon as he was put in his crib. After a particular tough night, I went on amazon.ca and bought three sleep books.

It was time to sleep train. My goal is to get Jacob to fall asleep in his crib for bedtime and nap time and stay in his crib. I don't expect him to sleep through the night, but I expect him to sleep in his crib.

Next post? How we "Ferberized" Jake.

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