I picked up a new book this week. It’s called The Sleepeasy Solution
Sleep. Easy. Solution.
That’s what I need. Asa is still waking up about 3 or 4 to eat every morning. Yes, he goes right back to sleep. Yes, his total hours of sleep is about 11 or 12 hours. Yes, he goes to bed with minimal crying. BUT I cannot make it much longer on this interrupted sleep pattern. I find myself getting aggravated at Asa, Les and Lydia because I haven’t slept.
For awhile I was just doing a minimal cry-it-out thing. I’d make a set time, say 2am. And if he woke up before then I wouldn’t get him up. Then after he’d wake up at 2am for a few days, I’d move my new time to 2:30. The plan was to keep moving it until he slept till the morning. Well, we’ve been stuck on 4am and the last few weeks he’s gotten worse–waking up at 2:30, 3:15 and every time in between.
The problem is Asa will cry for days. He just won’t stop. Sometimes I think he’s actually crying-crying. But other times I can tell it’s just PROTEST crying. He just wants me up there with him! Those are the times I go in there and he doesn’t have a tear in his eye. He’s immediately cheerful when I pick him up. And he looks at me with a little glint in his eye that says, “I won, Mommy!” OK, maybe not that severe but that’s what it feels like.
I’m not opposed to cry-it-out, I just don’t think it always works for a normal person. I’m strong enough (and consider kids strong enough) to cry for awhile–even up to an hour. But past that, it just seems to get kids more riled up. And parents stressed out. But the whole idea of doing-whatever-it-takes to make a kid fall asleep without a cry…rocking, nursing, laying down with, slowly-moving-away-centimeter-by-centimeter-so-they-don’t-wake-up just doesn’t work for me. I don’t think it helps kids learn to sleep unassisted.
What’s a normal middle of the road girl to do?
Well, this book is supposedly the MINIMAL cry sleep solution. We are on Day 3 of night weaning and this is how it’s been…
Day 1: NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING CHILD WAKE YOUR SLEEPING CHILD
According to the book, I was to wake Asa up an hour before he usually wakes on his own. So, I set my alarm for 2am. Then I groggily walked into his room and PICKED UP A SLEEPING CHILD to feed. I can’t even believe I did that. He ate for 10 minutes. I laid him back down and he went to sleep as usual. But lo and behold at 5:15 he was up screaming his head off. I won’t tell you how long he cried. But it was long. I don’t think I slept again that morning.
Day 2: T-minus 2 minutes.
I set my alarm for 3am this time. I was instructed to watch the clock and once he had eaten for 8 minutes (that’s 2 minutes less than the first day) I had to stop him and put him to bed. He was fine. Laid right down and didn’t wake up until 6am. Not bad.
Day 3: UTTER FAIL.
I don’t want to talk about it.
Day 4: AKA Day 2
I woke Asa up at 3am. Fed him for 8 minutes. (I had to revert back to Day 2 because of the aforementioned FAIL.) Fell asleep instantly—with a sweet sigh of delight even. He woke up at 6:35. I let him get up like it was his normal wake-time. Then he proceeded to cry for the next 45 minutes…whether he was in my arms, playing with a toy or crawling on the floor.
Not very encouraging, huh?
I’m going to give it a few more days. The whole idea is that you limit the feeding by 2 minutes every night. Then by the time you get to ZERO minutes, he won’t wake again. We’ll see what happens.
Has anyone done Sleep Easy before? If not, do you have any ENCOURAGING sleep stories to share?!
See Part 2: Days 5-11: It DOES Work!!
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