Sleep training

Controlled crying, controlled comforting, progressive learning – whatever you call it and whichever version you use, it is horrible, heartwrenching stuff. It still goes against what I believe is good for a child. I still think that it is not healthy to let a child cry without giving some comfort, it still feels fundamentally wrong to me. Yet we are doing it. Why? Because the alternative, a sleep deprived child missing his megawatt smile that we know exists and a sleep-deprived mum reaching the point of not being able to respond to crying anyway, now seems worse than the 7-10 days it is ‘supposed’ to take to get Master Z into a new routine.

Whilst waiting for a spot at a residential program, we enlisted the services of a sleep consultant who comes and stays a night at your house. She came last night. I am still not sure that we’ve done the right thing – I really do think that I should have waited for a vacancy in the residential program for the ongoing support over five days and nights – however we’ve started down this path and are committed to see it out.

Last night was just awful. Listening to Master Z “grizzle” (read cry and yell, but not in a I’m-really-hurting way) for an hour and a half, seeing his tear-streaked face the two times we went in to lay him back down and tell him “It’s time to sleep, Z. Go to sleep, Z. It’s sleeptime”, being so tired the first half hour that I couldn’t even keep my eyes open but couldn’t sleep, feeling like I was betraying our son…it all added up to a horrible, horrible night.  I spent a good hour crying and rocking myself on the bed while R tried to comfort me whilst I couldn’t comfort my son. There’s no way I could ever have done that first night without someone external, someone who’s been doing this for years, around to help, and around to make sure that I stuck with the program.

Most of the things she told us, we knew. The theories, the timings, the process. We got her in for two reasons: a) to see if there was anything we were missing in his nursery set-up and b) to get me through the first night, to be the force stopping me from giving it up as impossible after 20 minutes. She did pick that the Gro Egg thermometer that we have is too bright and that the room needs to be as dark as we can possibly make it – challenging given the mismeasured blinds which are too short on the window and the streetlight just outside Master Z’s room. She also suggested keeping the room at 20-22 degrees, considerably warmer than the 17-18 degree recommendation that I’ve read elsewhere. Also she said to give him a blanket, even though he is in the sleeping bag, as it will help him to learn how to use a blanket ready for when we transition him to a big bed. The blanket now seems inspired as I can give him that to hold almost as a dummy replacement.

When we mentioned the dummy, she went straight in and plucked the dummy from his mouth and said we should just go cold-turkey, which I was very happy to hear. Whilst the dummy has been limited to sleep time, I have been concerned by how attached and aware he has become of the dummy and I have been worrying about how we should remove it. If we have to do something this hard, I’d rather just do it the once and get the sleep and the dummy issue resolved at the same time.

I was feeling horrible this morning and so relieved when 6am finally struck and I could get him up when he cried. He did sleep 5-6am so already that was an extra hour of sleep, for him at least – I was awake from 3:30am, and maybe got 30minutes before 6am. He cried for a few minutes after I got him up and I just cuddled him, then he slowly perked up and became his normal cheery self with lots of snuggles for his daddy and I. I was so relieved that he did not seem affected by the night’s events and did not seem to blame me for leaving him alone. Seeing him snuggle and smile and walk steadily (unusual first thing in the morning for him) helped my resolve and made me feel a lot more positive about the process. 

The morning went reasonably well. I followed the sleep consultant’s suggestion and stuck aluminium foil over his windows to block light. I put him down to sleep and he asked for his dummy, “wherezit gawn? wherezit gawn?” and then he started to cry, but the cry only lasted about five minutes. He woke up 40minutes later, had a cry then settled back to sleep. A total morning nap of 1 hour 40 minutes – brilliant for him. Again, he woke a little teary, but soon cheered up with some books and a trip to Birdie Num Nums where he polished off a huge plate of pasta and looked so happy that I was sure we were doing the right thing. 

Then came the afternoon nap – apparently he should still be having two. He fell asleep in the pram on the way home, so I set about transferring him to the cot. In recent weeks, this has been a cinch. Today, he woke up and started bawling as I was laying him in the cot. I think by then he knew the dummy wasn’t coming and he didn’t want to be in the cot. The crying, which again would mostly be classified as grizzling, lasted for the whole hour and half. He was a very sad boy when I got him up and I was a very sad mummy. More books, a walk in the park, a play in the playground and he was pretty okay. 

I noticed that the foil was constantly making noise as air from outside seeped through the window frame, so I decided to take it down as I thought that could be scaring him. Yup. There were scared tears as soon as I started touching the foil. I took it down quickly and showed him that it was all gone, then put up a blanket later when he was otherwise occupied. 

Evening routine was as normal, right up to putting him in the cot, whereupon he started crying immediately. I finished the lullaby I was singing, lay him down with his teddies and blanket, said the words and left. He only cried for 3 1/2 minutes and now all is silent so I assume that he is asleep. I feel terrible though because this is the first time he’s reacted so badly to going in the cot. Settling hasn’t been an issue for us for a long time – we put him in the cot and he settles to sleep. Of course, only after he’s popped the dummy in his mouth. I’m sure that he is mostly upset because the dummy is no longer there, which means that we would have had to go through this at some point in time anyway, but given my conflicting feelings about the routine that we are implementing, it’s hard not to question if we really are doing the right thing. 

I’m sure a residential sleep school would be very similar, but at least I’d have experienced people around for each nap and nighttime to help me stay strong and to reassure me. At the moment I’m hanging on to the words of a friend who assured me that her relationship is even better with her son now that she’s not so sleep deprived (let’s face it, there’s almost always some level of sleep deprivation involved in being a parent!), and the countless stories I’ve heard from people saying that it’s the best thing they’ve done, it was horrible but their child was so much happier once they were sleeping. I’ve even seen it with my own eyes with one of the bubs in my mothers group who completely changed personality after her mum put in a gruelling week and she finally learnt to sleep. I also just have to remind myself of how quickly things can go very bad for us, when extra sleep deprivation is added to the sleep deprivation that has been accumulating over the past 15 1/5 months, and I know that while I don’t like it and it goes against my grain, we have to do it, we have to try anything and everything, to get the sleep that all of us need so badly.