I am in the midst of a personal crisis, a crisis practically every mother has or is going through…my son does not sleep through the night! My saga continues as we are coming into 10 months of figuring out how to sleep for the little guy. Some moms will scoff at me when I say this but he still gets up at least twice a night and I nurse him. The truth is I have not made a true blue effort to stop these night wakings because at one am I am barely awake and simply walk towards the crying baby, pick him up and shove you know what in his mouth and ahhh, sweet silence follows. I put him back in his crib and we both drift happily back to sleep, the end. But I am starting to grow weary of this song and dance and I am ready to put an end to the madness of waking up several times each night for the last 9 months! (especially since I plan to nurse him to 12 months)
My next issue is that there are literally thousands of so-called methods to “sleep train” your child. While I am proud to share that I worked hard to get him to fall asleep on his own after 4 months of rocking him to sleep, I am at a loss now. The middle of the night is the worst time imaginable to try to ignore a screaming baby. I don’t care if it’s a monitor or the real deal in your room, it sucks. Not only does it make you want to crawl out of your skin but also you feel guilty knowing he just wants his Mommy to come comfort him or at least give him some darn milk.
Everything I have read includes at least some crying. I can let him cry but for some reason at night I become a different person, possessed to do anything to make the crying stop and I end up caving in every time. Some tell you to not pick them up, just comfort them in the crib, haha what a laugh that is. I did this tonight when he woke up at 8:30 (after going to bed only 2 hours prior) and he proceeded to get on his hands and knees and trash before banging his head off the side of the crib. Of course then I picked him up! It is in those moments I hear the voice in my head saying “you will be sorry when you have a 3 year old who still will not sleep through the night if you keep doing this!” its that whole angel on one shoulder, devil on the other. I battle myself with guilt wanting to make him feel better and teaching him to soothe himself. I don’t want to be the one stopping him from a good nights sleep yet I can’t stand to hear him cry.
One of two things will happen one of these nights, he will learn to fall back asleep on his own, or I will toughen up and let him cry. Even when my husband has tried to soothe him at 3 am I end up making him pass him to me just to stop the crying so we can all go back to sleep. In the light of day, I cannot imagine doing such a thing but as I said, I am woman possessed! I know, I know in a few years when he is sleeping like a log I will look back on this and laugh. But right now, I am definitely not even cracking a smile!
