Sleep Update: The final hurdle

Amendment: My word this is a miserable post. It’s few hours later and I’m reading back. My apologies for filling you with so much Christmas Joy – NOT! In my defence I was exhausted and emotional but after a day of rest, mince pies and collective dancing to Postman Pat I’m already feeling better and more positive about tonight. Bear with me lovely readers – I promise the fun, not endlessly moany Josie will be back with you soon. Just a tough time but we’re on the way though xx

Upset today.

Trying very, very hard to convince myself that I am not the world’s most useless, horrible mother but after last night it is hard.

An update though first I guess. And totally devoid of humour I’m afraid. This is just one of those days where I have to tell it how it is and leave it at that. No trying to be clever from me. And another long post too – I don’t seem to able to tell this story quickly.

We have come a long way with Kai’s sleep, a very very long way. This time last year he was still waking at least hourly, refusing to sleep in a cot, refusing to sleep AT ALL at times unless held and rocked and nursed. We did what we needed to survive nights of endless crying, with a baby that seemed unable to tell the difference between night and day, despite strict bedtime routines and all the rest, and who seemed to have a natural wakefulness and immense difficultly to falling back to sleep once awake. Over the last twelve months we have spent every night working on helping Kai to sleep better, usually at the cost of my own sleep, and sanity at times. I read up on every sleep improving technique and strategy under the sun, shying away from the extreme approaches but still remaining persistent in weaning Kai off the things he seemed so dependent on for sleep. Move too fast and we’d end up with no sleep for days and an intensely distressed baby that was impossible to shut the door on and ignore. So we took baby steps, a ‘gradual retreat’ technique I guess, which although has been painfully slow at times and easily disrupted by endless bouts of teething, HAS worked.

We made a breakthrough when we stopped fighting for a while and gave into the things that Kai seemed to need. We stopped turning night times into a battle ground and instead concentrated in teaching Kai that night time was safe, pleasant, but boring too. We settled into a bearable pattern of Kai waking 3-4 times a night on a good night. And from there we worked, or at least I did, with endless support from Ant. First gently weaning Kai away from needing so much body contact at night, teaching him to fall asleep in his cot by gradually putting him down more and more awake. When I felt he was ready I began to get a bit tougher, and after A LOT of work he began to be happy to fall asleep with just the odd pat or hand hold.  He began to sleep longer and longer stretches, waking just twice, or even the odd once in the night. When awake though, he was often AWAKE awake for a good couple of hours during which I would try my best to get him back to sleep with shushing, and patting, and bless him, he would try, lying down and tossing and turning for an age but seemingly unable to fall back asleep. Often cuddles were the only answer once his distress got too much, and inevitably, once exhaustion got too much for me, a feed or two for comfort and calming him enough to put him back in his cot to go to sleep.

I know most people think we have been too soft, or must not have done the right things, and that the problems are of our own creating, but Ant and I know that this isn’t true. The boy just isn’t physically wired to sleep well, I wasn’t as a child either, and it’s meant the usual strategies that usually seem to work so quickly and easily on most children have been harder to get right with Kai. I believe the progress we have made as been because we moved at a pace that Kai was ready for.

And now he’s ready for the final step. Knocking the final night feed on the head and teaching him to settle himself without any intervention from me. This is the hardest bit I think and the one I’ve been finding most tough to do.

Enter lovely Lucy from Sleepytot who kindly offered to help me through making these changes and finding a strategy that suited Kai and was bearable for me. Lucy runs a company that make baby comforters and offers free, supportive sleep advice via her website. And no, this is not a sponsored post but a genuine, much appreciated connection made online after Lucy read my blog. We’ve decided to work together over the next couple of weeks or how ever long it takes to try and crack this final hurdle. You can read about it on her blog here, follow our progress in the community section of her website, and no doubt I’ll be posting my progress here too. Ant’s off for two weeks now giving me extra time to nap during the day if it gets tough so we figured now was as good a time as any.

I’m making two big changes to start with. Firstly, the easy bit – I’m teaching Kai to fall asleep at the beginning of the night with no help from me and just his dummy to help him, which he seems to genuinely need to suck to help him settle. Kai’s going in the cot, I’m sitting by the door and he’s going to bloody well go to sleep. This has not proved to be much of a problem and the last two nights he’s been happy to do so with very little complaining albeit after a lot of patience.

Then the tough part. No more milk at night. Last night that meant literally hours of angry screaming from Kai, hence the feeling like shit today. He woke at 2.30 and I tried to settle him with as little intervention from me as I could manage but after a while his distress got so bad and so relentless I had to hold him and soothe him till he calmed, and then put him back in the cot. I did this the whole rest of the night. He would settle, curl up and try and go to sleep, but not be able to do so or only sleep very lightly. Eventually he’d work himself up again, more cuddles, during which he would heartbreakingly keep signing for milk and clawing at my top, but I persisted, calming him down and putting him back the cot. I think teething pain wasn’t helping last night but I’d dosed him up with Calpol, given him teething gel – I’d done all I can. It was up to him now.

I gave up at 6.30. Getting him up and turning the light on to feed him. I want him to learn that milk is fine, but only once it’s day time. The minute the light was on and he had some milk he was happy as larry, bouncing around, smiley and laughing and ready for his day despite being awake most of the night. I don’t know how he does it. His stamina is unbelievable.

I’m determined to persist though. Lucy believes, and I do too, that it will get easier if I am consistent and persevere.

It’s just impossibly hard in the meantime.

Watch this space.

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