I'm so tempted to lie right now. Because once you put something out there in the world, The God of Jinx starts laughing and doing his little jinxy dance and throws lightning bolts into your happy fairy land. But I PROMISED to keep you updated and chronicle the Sleep Training for Realz This Time adventure.
I am a saint.
Last night, Night 2 of my sleep training experiment, resulted in this:
Why yes, that is a piece of chocolate cake with a magical elf on top.
That's not to say we didn't hit a few snags...that's why there's no salted caramel ice cream on the cake...but the turnaround from Night 1 to Night 2 was mind-boggling.
Previously on Sleep Training for Realz, The Bean was being auctioned off on eBay due to her refusal to just give in and sleep in the crib already. The nighttime was a disaster. The naps were even worse. She looked like she might be going into anaphylactic shock.
So I did what the book told me (Holla at ya Dr. Weissbluth! You and me are tight now. Kisses.) and prepared to put The Bean down for bed at the insane hour of 6 PM. The sun was still up.
I also loaded her up on some grub. Now food and sleep are not related (cereal does NOT help a child sleep better at night). BUT The Bean is going through a growth spurt and a child will wake up if they are hungry. So I topped off the tank.
She was exhausted and barely made it through the bottle before passing out as I was putting her into the crib.
And then it didn't look so good for me. Within 30 minutes of putting her down, she woke up and started crying. I added a Buy It Now button to her eBay listing and walked into the room to rub her belly, calm her down and walk out in TWO MINUTES. Any longer than two minutes and the child begins to win the sleep training game - or they explode, I wasn't waiting around to find out.
She wasn't asleep when I left the room. Not at all in fact, but I left anyway.
And then...it happened...she fell asleep. Actually, I was spying on her through the monitor...she cried for a bit, then just stared at the bars of the crib, resigned to her fate and eventually got bored with the lovely paint job I did in her room and passed out.
Not 15 g*ddamn minutes later, Bear started barking and woke The Bean up. So I had to kill him with a ninja sword I had hanging around the house.
Turns out, I could have let him live - The Bean amazingly went right back to sleep with nary a peep. Sorry Bear. We'll miss you.
She slept until 3:30 AM...already a win in Mama's book, but there's more. At 3:30, I went in to soothe her and it looked like her eyeballs might roll out of her head. So I went and made a small bottle to help lull her back to sleep (yes, this is likely sacrilegious in the sleep training Bible, but I'm going with my own combination approach here because she needs to be able to b*tch about something when she's a teenager). Within 15 minutes, she was passed out. I was back in my own bed WITHOUT A CHILD and also passed out.
Until 7:30 this morning.
And I'm going to go on because you know what else happened? The Bean took all her naps today. In the crib; without fighting it the whole time.
I may not have to kill myself...then again, we've just started Night 3. And I'm so very tempted to not hit publish...because it looks like The God of Jinx is already working his magic...
3 comments:
Sounds like pretty good progress to me! Can't wait for the next update!
Fingers crossed for you! May this be the first of many (relatively) peaceful nights.
OHMYGOODNESS! Good for you--that's so AWESOME. I can't tell you what it was like when my 1st finally slept more than 2 hours at a time...at 9 months... It. Was. Incredible. Also, Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child saved my life and my marriage. And my dog's life. And some local feral cats' lives. Maybe. Yay, Bean! Good job, Jen! Hang in there...it comes and goes with horribleness. May the horrible be short.
Post a Comment