Organically Growing

Night three of sleep training went about as good as night two. I think. I don’t really remember much. Marc said Ryder was up all night. I can’t confirm, nor deny that. I do remember feeding him at 1am, diaper change at 5am. I should try to consolidate those two events tonight.

What was new was the addition of a “lovey” cuddle doll to Ryder’s nighttime routine. A friend mentioned that her little guy has two loveys- one for naps/bedtime and one for car rides. He only gets to play when them during these noted times, so when she gets out the bedtime lovey, he it’s his cue to start winding it down.

Sounds like a legit idea to me.

For the bedtime lovey, I chose a Cuskiboo Organic Bamboo Cuddle Toy. It’s silky soft and looks like something that would be nice to cuddle during the night. I stuffed it in my shirt for awhile (per package instructions) to infuse my body scent in it. Ryder kept the toy close to him pretty much all night long – dragging it up and down the crib with him. Looking at this picture, I’d say he likes it:

Night two of “sleep training” (a term I picked up from all the very sweet sleep advice emails from local moms on a Yahoo group I belong to) went pretty well. Quite a few wake ups and crying fits, but they were much, much shorter in length and severity (or am I getting desensitized?) and Ryder put himself back to sleep each time with little to no soothing from a parent (sidenote: Marc joined me in the bedroom last night and did ample duty of soothing and even engineered an early morning diaper change. go dad).

Examination of gums this morning shows two little white specks I presume to be teeth cutting through. Layer on the stuffy nose and watery eyes, PLUS Elvira (nanny) said Ryder is doing some serious army crawls across the floor. It’s no wonder he’s not sleeping well! There’s a lot of changes in his little world!

So, sleeping has officially become something of an issue. New this week, Ryder has started waking with a start every few hours and crying hysterically. I haven’t heard cries of this kind since he was an infant and I couldn’t figure out how to feed him.

It’s intense. And it’s often. And it’s really stressful.

It’s gotten to the point where he’s in bed with us nearly the entire night. Which of course, with the newly acquired rolling skill, makes for a very uncomfortable and busy night of baby tending for mom (and to be fair, to dad. although to a lesser degree).

We finally reached a breaking point and decided we have to try and get him to sleep in his crib, even if it means crying it out for awhile. Again, posing a problem since his crib is in our bedroom. Last night we decided to try it out and see how it goes. Of course, we haven’t read any books on sleep strategies or know anything about anything when it comes to this (you mean you don’t just fall asleep and wake up when you’re done, baby?), but in our naivety, we decided to go for it.

The evening went like this:

I put Ryder to sleep in his crib. He sacked out from 7:30p to about 9p. Started crying. We let him cry for approximately 5 minutes before it occurred to me that maybe we should know what the hell we are doing before we torture him with thoughts of abandonment. So, I quickly searched online for the “ferber method” (the only thing I could think of in a panic) and read that you should soothe baby (but not pick him up) when he starts crying and progressively increase the crying time until he puts himself back to sleep. Eventually he won’t cry anymore, I guess.

Upon reading that, I bolted into the bedroom, gently patted his tummy and soothed him back to sleep. He slept until 10:30, then pulled his crying routine again. I let it go for 5 full minutes (just for your reference, I’m in the bedroom, Marc is snoozing on the futon upstairs). Spent about 7 minutes soothing him back to sleep (but who’s counting?). A little past 11, he wakes in a fit again. This time I say I will let it go 7 minutes, but he is asleep before that without any soothing. The worst of it is listening to him sniffle and hiccup after he’s fallen asleep, but I feel like we’re making progress.

At midnight, he’s back up again. This time in full bore sob mode. After 15 minutes of soothing, I can’t take it anymore and I pick him up. He instantly turns into a  butter ball and is sound asleep. He comes to bed with me, wakes for a snack at 2am and sleeps until 7am.

I feel like it’s a little bit of progress. And he’s a little sick right now (another cold), so I hate to push him too hard. I think he’s teething, too.

Maybe he’s just being a baby. Or, I am.