Sleep: Making Progress!

Oh, what a stubborn, sleepless little thing my son has always been! I remember so vividly that first night, squished into our half of the hospital room, Otis screaming and squirming, all the nurses muttering to one another about the "unsettled" one. Yes, that one's mine! But I think we may have a turned a corner...

As all loyal readers of this blog know, I have tried a few times to wean my boy of his night breastfeeds. This has uniformly been met by incredulity and anger! He would sob so sadly that I'd reluctantly end up pulling my top up, and letting him latch on. I would spend the next day alternately bemoaning my own weakness, cursing the fact that he'd won, yet again, and hating myself for even attempting to deny him.

After a terrible few nights, and with the prospect of starting a new 9-5 job looming, I decided I'd try a modified, more merciful version of controlled crying. I planned to sit in his room and hold his hand or stroke him (no patting — for part of this grand plan was for him to self-settle), rather than leaving him to scream in solitude, but under no circumstances would I retrieve him from his cot, or breastfeed him. The night started poorly — it took an hour of following said methods for him to slump down, asleep, exhausted from wailing. I slept on an air mattress next to his cot from 10:30 until 1:30, which was when he woke up. That in itself was astonishing! But as soon as I heard him shifting, I felt sick with fear. Imagine, scared of my own baby! Silly, but so true. I refused to pick him up, just sang and touched him, but he persisted for over an hour. He just screamed. He poked all of his limbs out, between the cot slats, and bashed his head against the cot. It frightened me. Honestly, the scary girl in The Exorcist has nothing on him.

Eventually I gave in. I gave in, not so much to my baby's demands, but to my own instinct, which was telling me from the get go that this wasn't the appropriate way to do things. And I felt better the minute he was in my arms — my defeated, sweaty, sad little man.

He slept beside me, and didn't wake again until morning! So I managed to refrain from feeding him, and we were both OK. He had a few sips of water during that horror period. I haven't looked back! He has not had a breastfeed during the night for nearly a week! And he's absolutely fine.

My boobs are looking a little flaccid and diminished, I am a little disappointed to report. I guess two feeds per day simply isn't sufficient to maintain the perky fullness they once exhibited. Small price to pay for a better night's sleep though.

Things aren't perfect by any means. I still believe that he may never "sleep through". But 4 out of the 6 nights since have seen him wake only once or twice, which is a dramatic improvement.