I may have gotten us into a little pickle, and not the good, cold, crunchy kind....but the kind that are warm and have been sitting on a sandwich for a long time that makes the bun all soggy. Yuck. Anyway - our good little boy who was sleeping through the night at 5 weeks and been on his two nap a day schedule since I can remember is sometimes fighting his naps, unless he is super tired, and waking up in the middle of the night, SOMETIMES MORE THAN ONCE. Part of me wonders if he is ready to move to only one nap a day....but the minute I think that, he's back on his two nap a day schedule, no problem.
The middle of the night problem is my fault. For the past 10 months I have been feeding him in the middle of the night when he wakes up. At some point I should have stopped this, but I haven't yet. It has seemed to be the only thing that would calm him down while those pesky teeth were coming in. He now has 6 teeth in and more on the way. I do feel lucky that I have been able to nurse him this long, even though I can't see it lasting much longer with supply greatly diminishing.
So now what? We try the cry it out method? We tried it for a little bit last night, then I gave in. Before, I would jump right up in the middle of the night when he cried because I didn't want him to wake Jeremy. Now that seems to be biting me in the butt. I know the cry it out way isn't an overnight change, but he can be so loud at night that part of me wonders if the neighbors can hear!
OR do I just suck it up and keep feeding him in the middle of the night? Part of me doesn't really mind, but the other part would like to sleep through the night.
So what's a mom to do? HELP
Oh, boy, that's a loaded question and would be interesting to hear all the answers. We were never successful with the cry it out method. There have been times we have let them cry and it works for a few months until the next illness, tooth, or crazy stage. One thing that has been consistent with all three is that they tend to be restless at night, and resist arrest, I mean a-rest, during the day when they are about to turn a corner....ie.. sitting up , crawling, walking, new words. Even to this day Eoin still gets restless when he is about to do something big like talk in sentences, learning to catch a ball.....
ReplyDeleteAnyway, we have done both depending on who is on late night duty. We will find ourselves in a rut and then work to get back to a state of normalcy.
Try, try, and try again...you'll wake up one morning and he'll be three sleeping in a big boy bed and coming to find you.
One thing I did to help eliminate the need for nite feeds is to stop feeding before naps first. You can still nurse him before his nap but do it out in the living room then take him to his room, maybe read a book, and put him down.
Good Luck, you're doing great and he's going to be just fine either way ;0)