Wednesday, November 17, 2010

3 Days of Torture

Zach is good at a lot of things - smiling, playing, kissing, hugging, running, climbing, hi fives, finding his belly button, finding anyone's belly button, sticking his tongue out when I ask him where his mouth is... The list goes on. But one thing he is just terrible at is sleeping! He's had periods of time where he would sleep all night but for the most part I would say that we were not blessed with a good sleeper. He is really good at pretending to sleep though.



But David and I are at our breaking point. It's probably our fault he's like this because every time he wakes up crying in the night, one of us goes in there with a bottle and rocks him back to sleep. We just aren't ready to sacrifice days of no sleep due to a crying baby. But lately, after he drinks his bottle, is rocked to sleep and put in his crib, he frantically stands up crying and wants to be rocked more...and more...and more. Sometimes it takes as many as 5 times of putting him in his bed to finally be able to leave his room. Basically, it's ridiculous and we know it. One reason we haven't been too keen on the cry-it-out method is that he cries to the point of throwing up and then we have a whole other problem on our hands. And the comfort-him-to-sleep-but-don't-pick-him-up method doesn't work for him either - he just gets hysterical (I cannot emphasize enough how hysterical he gets). However, last night was the breaking point! We went to bed at 10 and Zach woke up at 11, 12, 12:45, and 1:20. I couldn't believe it. We have had it. Plus, I'm taking him to New York with the family I work for in a month and staying in their 3 bedroom apartment and it would be terribly embarrassing to keep them up all night because Zach doesn't want to sleep. So, tonight we will begin the cry-it-out method! I think it should take about 3 days of torture to retrain him. Wish us luck! I'm going to be psyching myself up for this all day... And going to bed at 8 tonight so I can at least sleep until 11 or 12. Updates to come tomorrow. I'll leave you with a very cute picture :)



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3 comments:

  1. cant wait to talk tomorrow, love you guys :)

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  2. All i can say is, stick with it! I dont have kids so i cant speak from experience but I do know that you have to just stick with it. haha good luck!

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  3. I posted earlier, but maybe it didn't actually post...there's a book called "The No Cry Sleep Solution" and it has some great tactics and ideas of how to help your child sleep w/out having them cry it out. There are definitely other options...we went through a period like this w/Jackson about a year ago when he woke up every 15-20 minutes all night long-turned out he had acid reflux so once we got him on some medicine it got much better, but I totally understand being up all night and the extreme exhaustion that comes along with it!! We're praying for y'all and Zach is welcome to come over any time so you can go take a nap!!

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