Chilly turkey

Well, we're back.

Botany was once again a complete angel on the return journey (my seat finagling having proved very successful, incidentally- having booked the aisle and window, nobody in their right mind wanted to sit between us)*. I inflated the nursing pillow (thank you, stupidly named but oh-so handy "brest friend" travel cushion) and she fell asleep on take-off. To my delight, she slept the whole way, happily attached to the boob; I had to wake her on landing. I, of course, was trapped in my seat with the cold air blasting on my restless achy legs- but it was worth it to see Botany so content and to win kudos from the flight attendants ("what a good baby! not a peep!")

And then she refused to go to sleep ever again.

Actually, I jest. Naps remain business as usual- if I lie down and nurse her, she will sleep for up to two hours sometimes. Nighttime, though, immediately went to hell in a hand cart. Nursing, rocking, cuddling, etc. etc. sends her off to sleepysleepy quite happily- until she is put down and the wails commence. Part of it is no doubt the time difference (incidentally, the day after a night flight is no picnic when dealing with a baby who has had a more or less full quota of sleep while you, the parent, are catatonic from exhaustion and yet have to somehow stay up to try to get everyone back on track). The other issue may, I think, be that because of all the sitting up/ pre-standing up, we had to proceed with dropping the cot down to the lower setting. It now looks omniously like baby jail and it seems she hates it with the fire of a thousand setting suns.

After a couple of days of giving her a chance to recalibrate her time clock and meanwhile doing the endless bedtime shuffle (nurse/rock to drowsy/asleep, put down, pick up, repeat repeat) for over two or three hours, throw in some repeated, extended nightwakings and (again) I finally had enough. So much for trembling in the face of sleep training; let's get it on. And this time, I decided we were going to go for the hardcore cold turkey approach.

Lest anyone pillory me, I should explain: I purchased and read Weissbluth's Happy Sleep/Happy Kid book thing while in the States. I hadn't really intended to do so but it' s not widely available in the UK and I figured as long as I had the opportunity, I might as well explore the third leg of the sleep expert trifecta (Pantley, Ferber, Weissbluth).  I won't go into detail about the book; I concur with the many reviews in finding the text largely incoherent, poorly edited and full of annoying testimonials (including one which describes early bedtime equalling a later wake up time as "a Catch-22"- um, no.) But there are a few little gem-like nuggets buried within all the guff.

In short, Weissbluth (while offering other approachs) primarily advocates the cold turkey approach- baby in cot, shut the door, don't go in again for the whole night, no matter how long your darling cries. Aieee! Prior to reading the book, the whole concept of unlimited CIO made me shudder; how evil and cruel it seemed to not even go check! But then I read the bit where he points out that in behavioural terms, the extinction method is so effective because as soon as you consistently stop reinforcing that which you are trying to eliminate, the problem basically goes away (especially if you've up until now been consistently reinforcing the unwanted behaviour). Thus resulting in a quicker fix and ultimately, less crying over the whole piece.

Huh, I thought. Coupled with the fact that every time I went in a la Ferber, Botany would ramp herself up into additional hysterics at the sight of me coming and leaving, I figured we may as well give it a whirl. If nothing else, it's a very easy approach to follow in terms of being consistent- just don't. go. in. (OK, I did sneak in shortly after she fell asleep to make sure she hadn't gotten herself into a tangle in the cot bars or anything and to stare contritely at her sweet little sleeping body- I think the approach should be revised to don't go in while the baby is awake).

We're on night two; it's thus far not been pleasant hearing Botany cry but it was going to be a bit grim no matter how we went about it. I was dreading the middle of the night wake-ups the most, since I thought she might flip out about not getting nursed. But in fact, these were not at all bad. It seems she can put herself to sleep (eventually) even if she has been sitting up, which is sort of good to know. There was a long, long, long crying spell the first night when I put her down; she then woke up a number of times in the night, had a brief gurn/whimper and went back to sleep until 6.30 am. Tonight she cried for a longish time upon being put down; we'll see how the rest of the night goes. I figure try it for a week and then reassess how it's going.

In case anyone is marvelling as to how I can be such a cold-hearted bitch as to make my child cry (allow. we allow to cry, says Weissbluth), I can only reiterate what has gone before: I've realised I just can't parent properly if I don't get any sleep at night or any personal time whatsoever in the evening to take of my basic needs (eat, shower, pay bills). I'm not really expecting this approach to be the silver bullet- but with my return to work now looming, I think it's really time we took a real, consistent stab at trying to help Botany (and ourselves) sleep better at night.  I'll let you know how it goes, assuming my fingernails aren't worn down to bloody nups from having to restrain myself from going to comfort my child. 

*(apparently, I am in a brackety sort of mood, judging from the number used in this post) 

Comments

[TBM]

Good for you! I also went a la Ferber after realizing it could.not.be.any.worse. I think it's easier when you're trying to adjust timezones too.

About the baby jail - have you tried the mesh baby bumpers (Jolly Jumper makes one.)It would make the sides of her crib look like her Pack N' Play.

[daysgoby]

It is AMAZING how much this will occupy your mind and torture your soul...until it works, and then three weeks later, the horror will slowly creep away and you'll wonder "Why was I fussing so much about this again?"

That was my experience, at least.

I hope you and she both get some sleep! That half-listing feeling is terrible!

[tralala]

Hello there:

Longtime listener, first-time caller, as they say.

I'm currently navigating this territory with my 7 month old. We're doing Ferber for now, but I can see how the "reassuring" visits frustrate him, so we may have Weissbluth in our future (luckily a friend of mine took a seminar or something with him and gave me her excellent notes--so I don't have to read the unreadable). Nothing new to offer, just solidarity. I never thought I'd take this route; we started out happily cosleeping--until I realized that every time he stirred I was going to wake up, and that wasn't good for anyone.

[JK]

I'm good with what you're doing sleep-wise. You can read my thoughts here if you're interested....

http://3littlegirls-ohmy.blogspot.com/2006/03/once-week.html

I really like the Weissbluth book. I think the method is backed up by quite a bit of research--something missing in a lot of the other books about sleep.

Sleep is important! Especially for Mama!

[carosgram]

You go girl! You will both be happier with a good night's sleep.

[Sam]

Whatever works for you, do IT!

[Tonya]

Hoping it is going well. And no apologies needed, you are the only one who can decide what will work for you and your family. It is SO HARD to parent when you're sleep deprived... I'm rooting for you!

[Elizabeth Spinner]

Wow, what a complicated decision to make. On the one hand, you want your child to know you will help if she needs you (trust vs. mistrust) but on the other hand, mom being a catatonic zombie due to a difficult sleeper is not good either! I was lucky to have a fairly good sleeper, but my main view on sleep training was "I'll try it for a week or two. If it works, good, if it doesn't, I don't think I will have irretrievably psychologically damaged her in that time." :-) We moms want SO MUCH to have our kids be happy, sucessful,well-integrated people that we sometimes drive ourselves nuts...."If I don't buy this style of crib/use a sling/send her to baby gymnastics she'll be damaged for life!!!!" Relax...trust your instincts. Botany will be fine.

[spoiledonlychild]

I've been through no-sleep hell, and I am a huge advocate for doing whatever it takes to get your child to sleep. Cry it out (we went in briefly every 15 minutes just to say go to sleep) worked an absolute miracle for us. I find it hard to believe that so many people would deny their child and themselves much-needed sleep for weeks, months, even years, just because they can't stand to listen to their child cry for two or three nights. (If this approach is going to work, it shouldn't take more than about three nights.) Be strong. And don't believe the guilt mongers! Dr. Sears, I'm looking at you.

[Becky]

I eventually resorted to the same thing, and eventually it worked! I wish you luck and remind you that you deserve to feel like a human again, too.

[Laura]

Lordy. I want this to work for you. In part because then I'll have the nerve to try it myself.

(Nice to have you back!)

[Ruth]

We're on the verge of going back to Weissbluth with WB ... I've been happy with the family bed up to now, but it's not working any longer, and I can't function on 4 interrupted hours of sleep a night.

[Ruth]

to clarify ... we haven't gone that route with WB yet, we used it with our three older children, and it worked. I was just sort of hoping that this baby would get the Magic Sleeping Dust from the Sleep Fairy and training wouldn't be necessary.

I know. Clearly, I still have a lot to learn.

[Andrea H]

We had to resort to the Weissbluth method, more or less, with both of our kids, for the same reasons you cited.

It's complete and utter hell at the time, but once it's over you feel so much better, and the husband/partner feels so much better, and even the child is feeling better from sleeping more, that it's worth it.

I can concede to the gripes about the Weissbluth book, but overall I like the research based approach and it helped me become more resigned to/resolved to implement a good solid nap and night time routine. Now Don't Mess With Bedtime is our motto.

[seepi]

The goig in every 5 minutes worked for us, but I only stayed for a millisecond, enough to say 'time for sleeping now'. Picking her up, or trying to lay her down again etc just made her far worse.

One thing that helped me was our video baby monitor. Overkill really, but so much easier to sit in the next room listening to the whinging if you can see that they are not stuck in the cot or hitting their head or something.

With ours we could in fact see that she started off standing up (crying), then sat down (crying), then lay down (crying) then went to sleep. Without the monitor I would ahve gone back in when she was crying still (but lying down) whereas with the monitor I knew that as soon as she lay down, sleep would follow in a minute or two.

Hope it works out for you before you go back to work.

[Timi]

I'm glad that method is working for you. With us going in to the room just made things worse as well.

And, we take lots of transatlantic flights as well and so far coming back to this side of the pond (West to East) has been awful. It took us about two full weeks to get things back to semi-normal. Ugh. I'm glad to know it wasn't just us.

Plus, I need that blowup nursing pillow thing, it could have helped immensely on the 12 hour flight.

[sadie]

That book(well, the info in it) was gold for me and my husband. And our daughter. I hadn't realized that going to her as soon as we heard her fussing in the hopes of her "not working herself up" was just... silly. That she could put herself back to sleep just fine. It worked for us. Like gold. The other thing is, now when she fusses at night and cries there's no ambiguity-- we know something is "wrong." ; ie she's sick or teething or has had a nightmare or is cold-- and of course we go to her right away-- but those times have become anamolies. A few times over the past year and a half we've gotten off and have had to restart but it's brief-- and oh, the sleep...

[Amyesq]

Rock on, woman! You can do it. Be strong... it is so hard. Somehow I now have "We Can Overcome" in my head now.

[Amyesq]

I mean Shall. My old brain finally coughed up the right lyrics.