And now we have moved into a whole new nighttime issue…Teaching Jack to put himself to sleep.
For the LONGEST time, actually about 16 weeks to be exact, Jack has woken up several times during the night. Whether it's to eat or that his sleep cycle has ended and he can't fall back asleep without some assitance from me or J, he's up ALOT. In fact he has gone four hours of nonstop sleep exactly once. I like to think that if there is some kind of higher power out there, he or she decided to give me Jack, our 'high needs baby', because he or she thought I could handle the challenge ;). Whatever the reasons, I wouldn't trade Jack for anything.
So I have been reading and reading and we have been trying to figure out what tactic works for US. We started our nighttime routine before Jack was 2 months old and it included a nightly bath and then I would nurse him to sleep. After that I would let him take the lead and he would determine when he ate which was usually frequent and not very long. First I learned that Jack does not need to eat every time he wakes up. Yes, he would totally take the boob every time and eat for a few minutes but he doesn't NEED it. Several people suggested I start him on rice cereal early but I really wanted to hold off until he was at least 4 months and I do believe he is getting enough through my breast milk.
There was a very long period that I was the only one getting up with Jack at night and the easiest thing for me to do calm him is pop a boob in his mouth but I soon realized that was not a good long term solution and if I was ever going to sleep again, it was time for Daddy to get involved. So I imposed our first nighttime rule, I would only go into feed him every 3 hours, every other waking or time he needed soothing it was up to Daddy. This was working great while we were still able to swaddle him but when we had to take away the baby burrito things got a little hairy again.
We start bedtime between 7 and 7:30. It was bath, book from daddy, and then boob. Great, he would fall right to sleep! And then he was up every 5 minutes screaming. J would be up and down the stairs at least 6 or 7 times in an hour and spend anywhere from 2 to 15 minutes trying to get Jack back down. Needless to say it was frustrating for both of us.
In my reading, I learned that at 4 months babies start to become more aware of their surrounding and they are capable of taking that first step towards independence…or self soothing. I had known for awhile that I was giving Jack until 4 months to be a newborn and he was in charge of calling the shots but after that it was time for us to start working together. Well he is one week shy of 4 months and we are taking the first steps into self soothing.
I have never been a fan of the 'cry it out' method and I know that this would be an absoulte last resort for us. But I do beleive he is at the point where he can and needs to learn to put himself to sleep. So we changed up the bedtime routine several days ago to boob, bath, book, bed. By eating first, I know that he is not hungry when he goes down and therefore he not relying on me to fall asleep. We do bath time together and then Daddy does book and bed. Jack is then put in bed awake. The first night it took J almost an hour of screaming before he finally fell asleep. He lets Jack cry or wine for a few mintues but if he gets overly worked up J will pick him up and try to calm him. However the last two nights we have put Jack down awake, he has cried for 4 minutes and then went to sleep. For his late night wakings we have been giving him 5 minutes to try and put himself back to sleep and we have a had great progress. It is a hard 5 minutes for Mommy and Daddy but we know that he is safe and not hungry…he just needs to know that when he wakes up every thing is ok and that he can fall back asleep alone.
I time it out and if wakes up and it's been 3 hours since his last feeding I will go in and nurse him (that will be then next issue to address). Last night I went in at 4:40. He nursed for about 5 minutes, broke his latch to change him (which he did without screaming!), tried to feed him some more but he had no interest and laid him back in his crib wide awake and smiling. As I walked back to our room I was anticpating a fight from him. I watched him on our video montior and within 10 minutes of rolling around and talking to himself he was asleep!!! He didn't wake up again until 7:15!!!
Daddy and Jack napping
This precarious nighttime dance we have going on in the Voigts' home may sound like a nightmare to many but I consider last night a HUGE victory! He put himself back down 3 times….amazing! I have no expectations of Jack sleeping 10 hours straight, or even 6 hours, anytime soon and I am totally ok with that. We just don't want to have to have him waking every 5 minutes and needing our help to go back to sleep. Baby steps. I know it will all work itself out someday….I'm just hopeful that the next baby is a bit easier in this department ;).
With all that said….WOW Jack is almost 4 months old!!!
Lindsey
