Enter sleep training.
I do not know if that is the clinical term for this business, but it works for me! I was doing some research on no-cry methods of getting babies to sleep on their own. My reasons: (1) Lucas is too young to cry it out (2) Even if he was old enough to cry it out, it would break my heart to hear him do that. Therefore, I googled no-cry methods.
This is where I found what we're going to try tonight. http://www.babycenter.com/0_baby-sleep-training-no-tears-methods_1497581.bc?page=1
We are going to be trying method #3 by Tracy Hogg author of Secrets of the Baby Whisperer. I haven't read the book, just the breif description and what someone else wrote about it:
"...sleep associations should be positive but disagreed with his techniques. She cautioned against letting your baby depend on "props" such as nursing, patting, and rocking to get to sleep. Instead, Hogg’s approach calls for going to your baby when he cries, picking him up, and putting him back down as many times as necessary.
Her technique's a middle ground between attachment parenting (such as Sears) and CIO techniques (such as the progressive waiting approach popularized by sleep specialist Richard Ferber)."
"I tried Tracy Hogg's approach: Don't leave the baby to cry! Instead, when he starts up, go in there, pick him up, and love him until he stops. Once he's calm, lay him back down. If he starts crying again, repeat. Eventually he'll know it's time to sleep. Hogg said she had to do it 126 times with one child, but it dropped to 30 the next night, four the next, and soon she didn't have to do it at all. I tried this with my 3-month-old and it worked like a charm!"
One Hundred and twenty six times. Holy crap. This is going to suck.
Husband and I have prepared ourselves with a drive to the liquor store (yes, you can breastfeed and drink, just in moderation). We gave each other a little pep talk this afternoon about how neither of us are allowed to get grumpy if this first night ends up taking all night. That is only going to make this lovely little adventure all the more terrible for us. So strap on your happy pants, it's going to be a long night in the Sarabia household!
This is going to be especially difficult for me because I have been up since 6am with no naps today. NO NAPS. Not to mention the 2 times he woke up last night to eat. Gotta love those growth spurts. he decided to really get his 6 week spurt at 7 weeks. Fun.
Since our office closes at noon on Fridays, I decided to let Nicholas have a nice morning/afternoon with a quiet house (see previous post regarding the importance of breaks) and took little bug to work with me. After work, bug and I went and had lunch with my work besties and then some hardcore shopping. 2.5 hours worth thank you very much.
Christie and "little bug"
Immediately after our shop-a-thon, I came home, pumped my boobs, and headed out for dinner with my sister and her kiddos. This was interesting: Me, Nicholas, our 7 week old, my sister, her three year old, and her one year old. Wow. I'm pretty sure people were looking at us like we were crazy to even attempt such a thing as having dinner in public with three small children. Yea, it wasn't easy.
After dinner, time to get baby in his jammies and begin this awful journey. In the 20 minutes that it took to write this post, we've had to go into the nursery and calm him down 3 times. I'm scared for what the rest of the night has in store.
Pray for me.
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