It's 10:31 PM and there is peace in the house...
Asa has a bed time of 8:30 PM. This is our nightly routine (approximately).
7:00 PM I give Asa a bath
7:15 PM Dev feeds Asa
7:45 PM I walk him in his bedroom till he falls asleep
8:00 PM Give him to Dev if he is fussy
8:30 PM Asa is a beautiful sleeping baby boy
Having said that, this past week has been nothing of the sort. Each night we have diligently tried to stick to the routine. However, when it comes time to put Asa to sleep, he freaks. Nothing seems to comfort him. He cries when he hears his music. He cries when you walk into a dimly lit room (his bedroom). He cries when we try to feed him. He just cries. Before this time in the evening, he is an angel (of sorts).
I have a friend who has a daughter that had the same problem. His solution was to feed her, change her diaper, and leave her in her crib to go to bed. If she cries, they would not let her see them. They would simply stay near by to jump in the room if necessary. She cried 1.5 hours. I remember thinking "Eeesh, I'll never do that to my kid." God always makes me eat my words...
The past few nights, the only way to put Ace down was to put him in his carrier and walk him around till he went to sleep. I don't want him to get into that routine. We want him to be able to put himself to sleep. However, he slaps us with a roller coaster of emotions if we hint at sleep which forces us to do whatever works...his carrier.
Our solution?...Doing exactly what we said we would never do. After checking his diaper and seeing if he was hungry, we let him cry himself to sleep. On this night, he cried one hour and 5 minutes. This makes you feel cold blooded...like you are negating your parental responsibilities. We found ourselves fighting every urge to go grab him and comfort his tears.
It is a necessary evil.
***NEWS UPDATE***
I wrote this several weeks ago but am just now posting it. He has since this post put himself to sleep several times with no tears! WHOOOP!
7 comments:
i'm sure you two are WONDERFUL parents!! can't wait until we get to meet little Asa. Glad for you that he got himself & bed time figured out. :)
asa, i don't see a problem. i think your parents are finally getting to understand you better and better! i felt the same way in my first math class in college. it was only a few people in the room/the person in front of me spoke a weird language that i did not understand!/the test were a very bad experience much like having your booboo diaper changed/and that weird person would send my off to some dark room to study from this book that i did not understand and i would have really bad dreams! so asa, i understand your plight but hang in there. your parents are catching on and are really doing quiet a good job with you. so you will just have to tolerate them a while longer before you start understanding their weird language and appreciate your little dark room (which is a really cool bedroom with lots of goodies all over the place!) love, isn't it amazing how it is expressed going and coming from sweet little ones and their parents. keep up the great job guys! love ya, poppop
Asa, hang in there. You'll eventually get them trained. :) Sure do love you
~Hunny
I'd like to point out the heart above Asa's head in the pic of me and him. You know why it's there??? Because he LOVES me tons! :)
Stuart and Devanee, when my babies were little I went to the most wonderful pediatrician in all the land. I sought advice from him for times such as this. I remember at one of our visits noticing a poem hanging on a wall in one of his examining rooms that was from his children. It referred to the M.D. following his name and how it stood for "my daddy". Before I read that bit of information, I always thought the M.D. was short for worth a "million dollars" because in our family's hearts he was priceless! He always offered wise, well-thought out advice. If there wasn't a good, firm piece of medical advice to help any given situation he would usually say, "What my wife always did was..." I often wondered about his wife and if she might be half the jewel as he. The day finally came that she entered my life. Ironically enough, it was through you Stuart. A jewel she was, indeed! How blessed little Asa is to have a poppop and hunny to love him so dearly. And how blessed you are to have them as bumper pads to help you in this season of raising Asa.
Listen intently.
Asa, you look pretty happy in mostly all the pictures I've seen of you; I can only remember a couple that you were distressed, like when you went hiking where the alligators were (I'd be crying, too). But, just remind your Mom and Dad that you had a diet change in the last week or so and that could explain some of your sleep pattern changes, but you also might just want to read some more books. See if Omie can send you some more! See you soon!
just wanted to say you are not alone! we had to do this with Caleb, and we are having to work through it again now that he is loving standing up in his crib instead of going to sleep. sometimes they just need to cry to block the world out - and in the long run, a few nights of crying that creates countless nights of easier sleeping is so good for them! he know y'all are there and that you love him...i know it's hard (i know this was weeks ago, but still thought i would say something!) but you are not alone!
erin
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