Day one of sleep training (or Sleep training bites)

Matt and I have come to the conclusion that Audrey needs sleep training. She's basically been STTN since she was 6 weeks old (don't hate me), with an approximately one-month interruption due to the hateful 4-month wakeful (hey, that rhymed).

So, we didn't think we had a problem. That is, until we started noticing that other people's babies, at Audrey's age, were definitely getting naps that were longer than 30 minutes. And that it wasn't normal for her to be awake for a 4-hour time period when she was five months old. Not to mention the Tuesday debacle, when she was awake for 7 straight hours. And our little angel had become extremely cranky during the day, and was fighting both Matt and me when we were trying to get her to sleep. The key word there is "trying".

I heard some Bumpies talking about the Sleep Sense program, so we decided to try it. Our first night was Wednesday night. And let's just say this: I felt like beating my head against the wall. IT WAS HORRIBLE.

The idea is that your baby shouldn't be depending on any "props" to go to sleep, such as:

1) parents rocking her (Matt initially balked at this one), and

2) soothers (whaaaaat??? no pacifier???).

However, we can rock her, and she can have soothers, but not when she's trying to go to sleep. So here's what went down on Day One; she cried for 1 hour and 45 minutes. We were in the room with her the whole time, soothing her, touching her, saying we loved her, telling her it was night-night time. We could pick her up, but we couldn't rock her to sleep or allow her to fall asleep in our arms, according to the program.

I can't even begin to describe how hard it was. Horrible, devastating, mentally scarring. Seriously. When your child is pushing up in her crib, sobbing, staring at you like, Why aren't you doing anything to help me?, it crushes your heart.

I had a panic attack (imagine that), so I broke out my herbal remedy given to me by my holistic massage therapist:


http://www.valleyvet.com/swatches/37448_L_vvs_000.jpg

I take it every 15 minutes "during times of challenge", according to the bottle. The wording of the directions makes me feel like some 19th century woman, swooning in her corset as she receives bad news. Since I was feeling very challenged that night, I was practically swigging the stuff, even though you're supposed to take 2-3 drops at a time. Ooops. Did I mention it's 27% alcohol? It's inactive, though, I'm sure. Right?

So, Audrey slept for 9 hours and 45 minutes that night. Since the book (Sleep Sense by Dana Obleman) says babies of Audrey's age should be sleeping at least 12 hours a night, I thought...BIG FAT FAIL.

to be continued...