I hate every single second of it. I know it's for his own good but seriously, it's the worst 30 minutes of my day. We started last Friday night and he cried for 30 minutes before finally passing out, sitting up with his head propped in the corner of his bed. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen. Saturday night was not any better...and he didn't pass out. By Sunday night, I was done...we caved and I nursed and rocked him to sleep that night. In fact, I think I spent most of the night in the chair with him...I felt so incredibly guilty. The naps over the weekend were a little easier but it still took 20 minutes of crying. My poor baby, he napped for almost 2 hours on Saturday...he must have been exhausted from the trauma we forced upon on the night before.
In those moments, I have never felt so helpless, so heartless, so cold...and so full of self doubt, wondering if I'm cut out to actually be a parent because this will not be the hardest thing I'll have to do ever...not even by a long shot.
On Monday morning, I talked with Mason's teacher about what we were doing and she was on full board, ready to deal with a screaming baby twice a day at nap times. Monday and Tuesday were a little rough both at school and going to sleep at night. By Wednesday, it did start to get a little easier. On Thursday, he cried for a few minutes but I laid him on his belly, rubbed his back and gave him his music seahorse and a few minutes later, he was out. He only woke up once but he woke up coughing...Joe went into calm him down and I grabbed some water. He drank a little water and after a few minutes of back rubs, he was back out until 6:15 this morning! He basically slept through the night....he hasn't done that since he was 5 months old and I can count on ONE hand the number of nights he's done this in his short 11 months on this earth. It was a dream.
Tonight, I nursed and fed him his bottle and laid him in his crib, still half awake. I turned him over, gave him his seahorse and rubbed his back. Out again. I heard him wake and coo over the baby monitor for a few minutes after I had left but he has been sleeping since.
Seriously, where did Mason go? Did someone swap my baby? For a little man who has fought sleep and naps his entire life, I'm shocked at what a difference a week makes. He takes his naps quite easily now, he will fuss in his crib but after a quick back rub, he's out. And he's napping for 1+ hours, which is UNHEARD of in this household.
Part of me wishes we had started this sooner...yet part of me knows he wasn't ready before. And we probably weren't either. But whether it was intuition or just being fed up with his crappy sleep patterns, I knew it was time and even though it has been the hardest week yet, I'm glad we did it and stayed strong and didn't give up. I just hope this continues!
It's hard to believe we actually did this...no books, no special techniques and no rhyme or reason for what we did and didn't do. We just did, without thinking...and followed our gut, knowing our baby better than any doctor, teacher or author could ever know. And at the end of it all, one of the greatest lessons I continue to learn over and over again...that parenthood is not a science and is never black and white. But if follow your intuition, you can't fail at this. It's not possible.
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