My precious boy!Today's post has nothing to do with fashion but I needed some sort of release so I decided to write...we had to start seriously sleep training our precious Maverick yesterday and it's a VERY tough thing to do. I have read so many other mommy blogs about their babies' sleep journeys and found them helpful so I thought maybe sharing ours (which we're very much in the middle of right now) might also be helpful...or at least let you know that you're not alone if you have a child who is struggling with sleep and you feel like you've tried everything and are going crazy!
Maverick has never been a good sleeper. We say that he has FOMO - fear of missing out! For the first 10 weeks of his life he slept every night in a swing and every nap on me. We then transitioned him to his crib at night but he continued to nap on me for another 5 weeks. We then had him sleeping completely in his crib (which felt like a big accomplishment!) but I would stay in his room during all naps to replace his paci anytime it fell out. At night I would run in every time I heard him cry at all trying to soothe him as quickly as possible...this led to being up every 1-3 hours every night. I've never been so exhausted in my life! People tell you that you'll be sleep deprived and that is no joke! I did what all the books say...created a sleepy time routine, used white noise, made sure his room temperature was perfect, got a humidifier to ensure the air wasn't too dry, black out blinds for his windows, I tracked every time he slept trying to make sure I was getting him to sleep at least every 2 hours (although he often fought me on that!)...I even thought I'd mastered the putting him down drowsy but awake tactic...the problem was I sat next to his crib with my hand on his chest and holding the paci until he fell asleep so when his natural sleep cycles would occur he'd wake up and find me gone and no paci and he didn't know any other way to go to sleep.
So finally after reading countless books, sleep blogs, questioning all my friends with babies and Facebook forums, I finally hit a wall and realized that both Maverick and I were unhappy and overtired and something needed to be done. He was getting fussier than ever and his eyes were so sleepy. At 4 months and 19 days, my husband and I decided it was time to try crying it out. We started yesterday evening and now 3 naps today. I'm trying to keep myself distracted and saying lots of prayers that he will quickly learn how to soothe himself because I know the gift of sleep is one of the best things I can give him. I know cry it out can be controversial but after lots of reading, research, talking to our pediatrician, and realizing that this might just be what our Mav man needs to learn...we're doing it and there's no turning back! This seriously has to be the thoughest thing I've ever done...not running to my little boy's every cry! So we shall see what the next week has in store. His two biggest issues have been night wakings and too short naps and I know the two are linked. I shall keep you all posted on Maverick's sleep journey and please feel free to comment with your own experiences or any questions or comments if you can relate!
Xoxo,The Baltimore Blonde :)
