Dear BabyWhisperers,
Here I am, finally logged in as a guest, so that I can thank you for the great gift of "Babywhispering." Wish i could thank Tracy, but you all work with her commitment, so thank you! You can imagine that I am full of gratitude as I have had two nights now when my 11 month old (today!) baby boy has slept through the night--from 7 to 6:30 ish, after two weeks of steady improvements. What did it? I read the fine print in 'The Babywhisperer Solves All Your Problems," scanned these boards, and used pu/pd consistently, and it worked!
I chose this thread to report our success because my lo was waking around 4am, consistently, and I was breastfeeding him, consistently. I had tried around around 7 months to do pu/pd, but after two weeks of being up from 4 on, I decided to just feed him quickly, and he'd go back to sleep (and I would) until 6:30/7. He had stopped feeding at other times in the night before that, and I had enforced that with pu/pd if he did wake up at 12 or 1 or 2, but the early morning wake/feed was not "going away," as my friends and mother said it would.
The key this time was Tracy's direction to stay with your baby until he falls into a deep sleep. Before, I would leave once he was asleep, but he would call me back in every 15, 10, 5 minutes--so I never slept. I decided that standing there was worth it. A couple nights I had a rush of feeling ill (I probably woke in the middle of a deep sleep rhythm), and my back needed TLC in the morning, but it did work. (A little aside: I learned quickly that I had to pee and drink water BEFORE going in to him, and make him wait, or I wouldn't make it)
The first night was maybe 20, 30 pu/pds over 1 and 1/2 hours. Then he had "heart sloughs", then finally slept, but I stayed another 20 minutes. He didn't wake until 6:30.
The second night, he wasn't crying so intensely, so after putting my hand on him and him pushing it away, I just sung to him--for an hour. "Jesus Loves Me" is our bedtime song and I just sung it over and over. Then he cried intensely for 1/2 hour and I did pu/pd, , and then he slept until 6:30.
The third night I was still there for 1 and 1/2 hours, singing and 2 pu/pd, then many more for 45 minutes. It wasn't easy, I say honestly. But I felt I'd seen improvement and i was hopeful that this would work.
Day five he started to put himself back to sleep, and/or need only a couple minutes of singing. Into week two, i was ready for him not to wake up at all, impatient for real results I was! But I knew that it was huge for a baby whose eaten ever 4am of his 10+ month life to go back to sleep quickly without eating. For a week, he'd wake about twice, say at 4:20 and then 5:15. Most times I just sang, maybe put my hand on him, occasionally pu/pd if he got crying, and then I'd stay in the room, but only 10-15 min max. For example, he'd wake at 4:20, I'd stay until 4:30, and he'd wake again at 5:15. I decided that I'd rather lie down and maybe sleep again than wait for him to wake again, as they were longer intervals. Sometimes he's wake close to 6, and then we were up for the day--pu/pd didn't work for us then.
Two weeks later, he slept from 7:15 to 6:30, and I couldn't believe it! The next night was two wake up agains, and then last night, again 11 hours! I am so thankful!
My husband, not one to go in for all this BW stuff, told me early on that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Well! I said, call me insane then! Repetition and perseverance have been the saving graces of my early parenting, so call it what you will! But seriously, a note about husbands: I had thought that I needed him to get on board before doing night pu/pd weaning. then I read a story where Tracy said no, the husband was too soft, let the mom do it. Well my husband isn't too soft but we are not on the same page and I didn't know how to get us on the same page. He went downstairs to the guest room actually, and I felt better that I/crying wasn't waking him. Not ideal but acceptable to us.
This is long enough, but I wanted to get in some of the smaller points that I know we all question. The big find for me in the Babywhisperer and in all of you is our agreement that letting babies cry for long periods of time, alone, as a way to teach them to sleep through the night is not best. You have been a haven for me as not one friend follows the BW but insteads tends towards CIO or attachment parenting. My heart couldn't do the first, and my energy level couldn't do the later. But what would we do without a workable way? Thanks for this way, and it truly works.
If anybody is desperate to sleep as I was, I'm with you!
