Max has decided that he no longer needs to sleep. The Boy Who Loved to Sleep has morphed into the Boy Who Would Not Sleep.
Until this point, we have been very fortunate that Max enjoyed his slumber. We never had to let him "cry it out" and he even gave up his night feedings on his own with only minimal assistance from us. From the beginning we tried to instill good sleeping habits with Max. We attempted to maintain an Eat-Play-Sleep cycle so that he wouldn't associate nursing with sleeping. We put him to bed drowsy but awake instead of holding him until he fell asleep. We learned to watch for his sleep cues and pay attention to what he was telling us. For example, when we are reading a story and Max starts to fuss, that does not mean keep reading until he stops whimpering. It means put him in the bed because he is ready to sleep! He would pop his thumb in his mouth, turn over, and be asleep within a few minutes.
We were also fairly strict (consistent) about his schedule and having him home to nap in his crib as much as possible. We never let him get into the habit of napping in the car or the swing unless he woke up early or it couldn't be avoided. After some trial and error, we gave him a regular bedtime and wake up time. I wish we had started the wake up time sooner, although it just seemed fundamentally wrong to wake a sleeping baby. We did all these things "right" and for 9 months we had a great sleeper.
So what now? What do you do when your child starts waking up before the sun comes up? Starts taking 45 minute naps? Sits up and grins at you from the crib when you go in to check on him? Where is my Max?
Sigh. None of my friends have any sympathy for me. They tell me stories of woe about babies who didn't sleep through the night until after their first birthday and tales of never ending crying. But let me assure you, going backwards on sleeping is so much harder. When you are used to a regular sleeping schedule, it is torture to be sleep deprived and foggy brained again. I have always known that we just got lucky to have a good sleeper. I know plenty of people who tried the same methods we used to no avail. The question remains, how do you recapture your luck? Come back, sleeping baby, come back.
3 comments:
Perrin did this too. He slept through the night at 10 weeks and kept it up until about 8 or 9 months. He would wake up for a bottle about 4 am. I did it for awhile, got him up and fed him but after a few early mornings and not being able to go back to sleep, we decided to let him cry it out. It took about 3 days and he quit waking up so early. He is still an early riser (6-7am) and sometimes wakes at 4 or 5 (maybe once a week) but I still let him cry, I NEVER get him until at least 6. If for some reason I do go get him too early, he will do it for several mornings in a row, hoping I come get him again. He is a real smarty pants! It really worked for us.
Perrin has never taken good naps until recently, they were always 30-45 minutes, from birth, so no sympathy there...ha!
Good luck with little Max!
Thanks for the advice! What is it about babies...as soon as you think something is stable, they change it on you! Actually, I will have to write an addendum....he slept 12 hours last night and I had to wake him up to eat before I left this morning!
Yuck, yuck, yuck. It's amazing how you don't really appreciate a good night's sleep until you have a baby - lose it---and then get it back. You know William was not a good sleeper for the first year, even with all those 'good practices' - which gives me even more sympathy. Hopefully he'll get better. Crying it out I know is the right thing to do at times, but it is just SO hard and sad!
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