It is amazing how much parents talk about how little their children sleep. You don't know how important sleep is until you go a few weeks/months ok maybe years without it!
Zach woke up every two hours until he was six months old. I would feed him and then he would go right back to sleep. On his six month birthday I said enough of this. I let him cry one night. It took about ten mintues and he has with few exceptions slept through the night ever since.
Kaitlyn on the other hand has been a much better sleeper. Once she was about a month old she would sleep in four hour stretches through the night. Then at two months she would sleep 5-6 and around 4 months she was sleeping 9-11 hours. I was spoiled.
Well about two weeks ago she decided she'd change things up a bit. She thought it would be fun to see what mommy and daddy looked like at 2 and then 4 and then 6. I tried to explain to her that we just kept looking worse. She didn't seem to agree. She would greet us with the biggest and happiest grin whenever we slowly trudged our tired lifeless bodies into her room.
I decided that two weeks of getting up at 2 and 4 and 6 was enough so I made the decision that Wednesday would be the last of it. I went in there and made sure she was ok at 2 and then left. She immediatly began screaming. I went to my room and pulled the covers over my head and tried as hard as I could to ignore the screaming child who only wanted her mommy. I knew if I went in there she'd stop, but unfortunately I also knew that if I went in there this would continue indefinitely.
Kaitlyn I love you but I really like (need, require, absolutley for the love of all that is holy MUST have) sleep also. I started by saying I'll let her cry for ten minutes, if she hasn't stopped by then I'll go in there. Ten minutes came and went, she was still crying. Ok, fifteen, ok twenty, ok twenty-five...alright 30 but that is absolutley it! Thankfully for me at 29 minutes of lying there fighting every urge that said go in that room I started to get up to go in there and what did I hear...quiet. Aghhh...it worked!!!
Thankfully it only took one night. (PS- I'm sorry to the moms who are cursing me right now) She went to bed last night at 9:00 and slept until 6:00am. I went to the kitchen to make her a bottle and by the time I was done she was back to sleep until 8:00. YEAH!!!
Belle-isms
11 months ago
3 comments:
Regarding your 2nd sentence... AMEN SISTA!!!
Although he still has his not-so-good nights, Corgan is a much better sleeper than Annabelle ever way (she didn't sleep through the night until 9 months)! I still wonder how much of this is their personalities (I'm sure that has something to do with it) and how much of it is me knowing better than to go in and get him/her every time they cry.
I feel your pain with the cover over your head thing. Corgan is still in our room, so I not only have to put the covers over my head, sometimes I have to leave the room and go sleep on the couch. Keith can sleep through the whole freakin' thing though. :(
Guys, right, Keri? :) I feel ya with the sleep thing (as evidenced by my MILLION sleep posts). Erin is usually a good through the night sleeper, but continues to wake up at 5:30ish EVERY day. UGH!
Halle was a lot like Kaitlyn and Corgan... slept like an angel 99% of the time, but every once in awhile she'd shake things up and throw me for a loop. It's amazing how spoiled you can get with sleep and how hard it is to go backwards and try to function without sleep again. I knew better than to complain about these nights what with the months and months and months of torture that Keri and Stacy were going through at the time. :) I'm glad your intuition about letting her cry worked and she's back to sleeping again! Here's hoping my next little girl is as good of a sleeper as the first!
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