DS has been a difficult and immature sleeper since birth. When other kids were taking three naps per day, he was taking six. He's NEVER gone more than 2 hours at a time, sometimes waking up every hour, or every twenty minutes. Then he started having trouble going to sleep and we'd be lying with him for HOURS until he fell asleep. It's been hell.
There's lots of blame in my head. We have a family bed. We have refused to use the blunt instrument of CIO. We will not sleep train. We still nurse at night. Lots of reasons conventional wisdom would tell us that we've caused this problem.
We started getting up before he actually went to sleep because we figured out that our presence was not helping him. He protested at first, got out of bed multiple times, but now we can actually spend about fifteen minutes cuddling and listening to his sleep music, then excuse ourselves and he falls asleep on his own, then he STAYS asleep.
We don't have a gate on his bedroom, we've never let him cry, we're STILL nursing if he wants to. And he's sleeping. SLEEPING. It's beautiful. It's a gift.
He's 2.5 years old and I can't believe we put up with this for 2.5 years, but it's been so worth it because we've achieved something without having to compromise our values. I also know from the past 2.5 years that this may not last, but I wanted to share because I know that the absolute hardest path to take is to respect your child, to parent overnight, to not force them to be separate from you (I really hate when people who CIO moan about how hard it is. Yes it's hard, but trying being tortured for years). It drains you, it takes a lot of energy and effort, but it can work.
There's lots of blame in my head. We have a family bed. We have refused to use the blunt instrument of CIO. We will not sleep train. We still nurse at night. Lots of reasons conventional wisdom would tell us that we've caused this problem.
We started getting up before he actually went to sleep because we figured out that our presence was not helping him. He protested at first, got out of bed multiple times, but now we can actually spend about fifteen minutes cuddling and listening to his sleep music, then excuse ourselves and he falls asleep on his own, then he STAYS asleep.
We don't have a gate on his bedroom, we've never let him cry, we're STILL nursing if he wants to. And he's sleeping. SLEEPING. It's beautiful. It's a gift.
He's 2.5 years old and I can't believe we put up with this for 2.5 years, but it's been so worth it because we've achieved something without having to compromise our values. I also know from the past 2.5 years that this may not last, but I wanted to share because I know that the absolute hardest path to take is to respect your child, to parent overnight, to not force them to be separate from you (I really hate when people who CIO moan about how hard it is. Yes it's hard, but trying being tortured for years). It drains you, it takes a lot of energy and effort, but it can work.
