Adventures in Sleep Training

(First, a totally irrelevant aside - Do y'all remember the movie Adventures in Babysitting?  The dramatic karaoke solo to "And then he kissed me," bus station hysterics from the best friend, and the scary guy named "Thor?"  Now that was a great movie.)

Another aside - this is another long and personal post, but it's occurred to me that maybe I shouldn't apologize for that.  Apparently when I blog, I go all out.

So - now finally reaching the point of this post - I realize many moms will hate me for what I am about to say, but it has to be said:

When she was approximately 9 weeks old, Bailey began to consistently sleep for more than twelve hours a night (usually from around 7-7:30 until 7:30 or 8 a.m., or even (gasp!) 9 a.m. sometimes on the weekend), unless she was sick. 

I know, I know, pregnant women and anyone else who will listen are constantly subjected to warnings from moms about the lack of sleep that babies bring with them.  And trust me, for the first weeks of Bailey's life, I GOT IT.  I mean, I now fully understand how sleep deprivation can be a form of torture.  No matter how much I tried to "sleep when she slept" as advised, I was a walking zombie.  

We started a modified form of Babywise around 2 weeks (no cry it out, but we tried to follow the eat, wake, sleep model during the day and tried to keep feedings about 2.5 hours apart).  At first, it was miserable (have you ever tried to wake a sleepy newborn who has just drank her way into a milk coma?  WAY harder than it looks in the movies!)  We also didn't see too much of an immediate result - she was still waking up and eating at least once during the night.

But then, around 6 weeks, Bailey slept through the night one night.  Of course, we thought this was just a fluke.  But then a few nights later, she slept through the night again.  This trend slowly continued until (awesomely!!) Bailey was sleeping through the night almost every night.   I got used to this schedule.  I even (mistake!) took it for granted.  I mean, clearly I was the master of baby sleep training, right? 

Apparently not.  

At the beginning of February, Bailey got a tummy bug.  Of course, I knew she needed as many fluids as she could get to avoid dehydration, so I was rushing in her room with a bottle as soon as she would cry for one to give her some fluids and some mama love.  A few days later, she had RSV, so back to night feedings we went.  After two weeks of RSV, she developed an ear infection the next week.  As you can imagine, the night feedings and mama love sessions continued.

So after this long stretch of food comforting at night, we had a baby used to going to bed at 7-7:30 p.m., waking up and drinking 6 oz once a night, and waking up super early for her first bottle (usually around 5:30 am).  I know this sounds like a somewhat normal schedule for most babies and like it should be plenty of sleep for a baby.  I should explain, however, that Bailey refuses to nap for more than thirty to forty-five minutes twice a day at daycare, so she only usually ends up sleeping around an hour and a half total during the day on weekdays (regardless of my sweet little requests that the teachers try to "help" her get a couple of good naps - I truly think she's just too interested in everything that's going on to sleep).   Due to her refusal to sleep at daycare, she clearly needs at least 12-13 hours of sleep per night to even be in the realm of what is normal in a 24 hour period for a baby her age.

Also, DUDE SHE WAS SO GOOD AT SLEEPING WHAT THE EFF HAPPENED AND WHERE DID MY 8 PLUS HOURS OF UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP GO?

Sooooo.....after the ear infection seemed like it should have healed and we began to doubt our teething theory (it's supposed to cause "mild irritability" for a few days/nights, not weeks on end), we visited with the pediatrician to verify that Bailey's ear infection had cleared up and wasn't causing the wakings.  The pediatrician verified that Bailey's ears were clear and opined that Bailey had likely just trained herself to wake up for the night and early feedings while sick and that she would probably need some "tough love" to break herself from her reliance on them. 

In other words, she thought we should try letting Bailey "cry it out." 

As I understand it, the cry it out method involves allowing a baby to cry for a short interval, checking on the baby to let them know you are there, then letting them cry for longer and longer intervals in between checks until they learn that they just need to go to sleep.  The "On Becoming Babywise" book I used to help with Bailey's daily schedule recommends it from as early as 2 weeks old, but many authorities say you shouldn't do it until 4 months.  The cry it out method is beloved by many for its effectiveness, but  also has its fair share of critics.  While I have no criticism of those who have used it and had it work - I know many personally who are incredible moms - I had not ever been able to do this.  While there had certainly been times when I was been exhausted and frustrated and let Bailey fuss for a few minutes until she fell asleep or even cry for a few minutes while I gathered my strength and calmed my own nerves, I just could not bring myself to let her cry for extended periods of time, even if the American Association of Pediatricians recommended it. 

At this point, however, I was ready to try anything.  So I steeled myself for a long night of crying (mine and hers) and planned my own version of crying it out - letting Bailey cry for as long as I could take it a few minutes, comforting her, letting her cry for as long as I could take it a few more minutes, and so on.   When the big moment of crying came, I let her cry for maybe thirty seconds a little while before rubbing on her back and comforting her.  This worked the first night, and she only woke up 2-3 times.  The next night, it progressed to 5-6 wakings, and I realized I was going to have to toughen up.  So, I began giving her a few minutes to cry before I went in, and she began going back to sleep many times before I had even gone back to bed.

Despite our initial progress, my best efforts intentions, and my master sleep training skills (insert eyeroll here), Bailey has not "cried it out" for more than a few minutes at a time, and even then it usually only happens when I'm pretty much knocked out and just don't hear her right off the bat.  We're still dealing with regular night time wake-ups and very early mornings.  I think I've now resigned myself to the early mornings, and I've definitely now realized that if I want to function as a semi-intelligent person (read: not total zombie) at work, I am going to have to head to bed before 11 p.m., workout and/or couch time be damned.

Which begs the question - is Bailey the true master sleep trainer in this family?  I don't think I want to answer that question right now.