Monday, May 27, 2013

that time karma bit me in the ass. oh, and sleep training.

remember last week when I mentioned that Sean was sick again and that he was being a big baby? 

yeah. that was dumb. Friday morning I woke up feeling congested and by Saturday, I had a fever of 101.4 that was kicking my ass. you know what sucks worse than being sick? being sick while you're trying to transition your kid (who is ALSO sick) to his crib at nine (!!!!) months old. 

we're following a modified version of the SleepEasy Solution, since they have a good plan on moving baby from your bed to his own. we're stretching the whole "sleep with baby in his room and soothe as you normally would" thing for a whole week (they recommend 2-4 nights) since Ronin is older and is aware of his surroundings. we'll start the actual sleep learning program this weekend.



we began the transition on Friday night, and Sean started off by sleeping on the floor in the nursery right next to the crib. Ronin was only asleep for an hour or so before he leaked out of his cloth diaper (ugh, SO frustrating) and we had to put him in a disposable and change his jams. and then Sean ended up coming downstairs to our bed at about 2AM because his back was killing him. naturally, when Ronin woke up crying, it was Mama to the rescue. so now I'm sleeping on the floor next to the crib, but he still didn't want to sleep. he would be passed out, but as soon as I laid him down, he'd wake up and stand up in his crib. finally, I pulled him out of the crib and onto the floor with me and we both fell asleep... until the fever crept up on me and I went from comfortable to freezing in about 20 seconds. we spent the last few hours of night one all huddled up in our bed downstairs. well, I guess I was the only one huddling since I was the one with the chills. Friday night was a shit show. 

1) yay, he's sleeping! IN HIS CRIB! 2) well shit. 3) aw, best Dad ever...
4) not pictured: my fevered ass bundled up on the floor with a baby on my chest.


Saturday, we wised up and moved an air mattress up to the nursery so we could avoid sore backs by sleeping on the floor. I went ahead and volunteered to take the second night of wake ups, even though I was exhausted and still feeling like total shit from the virus. we had our first wake up at about 10:00 or so, but he was quick to get back to sleep. he woke up a few more times and was to the point of standing up and not laying back down by about 4:30, so I brought him to the air mattress with me and he slept until around 7:00. 

Sean took nursery duty on Sunday night. we actually stayed up later than usual and watched the first two episodes of the North America special on the Discovery Channel. Ronin didn't have his first wake up until close to midnight, woohoo! Sean went up to comfort him and I was SO relieved and excited to get a good night's sleep. except Sean brought Ronin down to our bed at almost 5:00 - apparently he couldn't get Ronin to sleep with him on the air mattress and he was coughing a lot. so once again... Mama to the rescue... even though I didn't go to sleep until about 1AM. I finally got him to fall back asleep at around 6, only to have him wake up for good at 6:45. eff. my. life. 

so needless to say, we had an early bedtime of 7:00 tonight. we're going to take turns sleeping in there with him this week and then we'll put him in his crib awake and start sleep training on Friday evening. 

I wish liquor stores had loyalty programs for frequent customers. #beerme


9 comments:

  1. Oh my damn. I'm sending you virtual summer shandys like whoa.

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  2. I'm so tired just thinking of this and not getting sleep! Ahhhh good luck momma!

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    1. haha, thank you. it is tiring, but it will be better for everyone in the long run. :)

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  3. oh dear that's not fun at all - good thing there are so many books and resources on this... how did women in the past do it?

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    1. haha, I HAVE NO IDEA. I think about that ALL the time, too. I'm like, "how did they know if he was getting enough to eat?!" so crazy how much we depend on medical knowledge!

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  4. Ignorant non-mom here...but I'm just curious, is it like especially traumatic for kids to just be put in their cribs to cry it out? Or is it more traumatic for the parents that way? I honestly don't know the psychology behind the process so I'm curious if just putting them in their crib and forcing them to get used to it will cause them to join the trenchcoat mafia in their teens or something??

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    1. personally, I don't think it's cruel for the kid, but there are people out there who do think it is. I think it's definitely harder on parents than it is for the baby. the good thing about the cry it out method is that it's QUICK - it typically only takes 2-3 nights for baby to get it and sleep on his own.

      we'll be helping him to learn how to self soothe (which he already knows how to do) by leaving him in there and doing timed check-ins in increasing intervals (5 minutes, then 10, and then 15 until he's asleep). it's important to me that he knows we're still there and that we didn't just abandon him, even though he doesn't really have the capacity to think that just yet, haha.

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