What We Did Instead of Sleep Training
The first night we got home from the hospital our baby cried until 4 am until she finally fell asleep with her head resting on my arm right next to me in bed. As worried as I was about co-sleeping, I was also exhausted after a long labor and not sleeping much in the past 48 hours.
As someone who suffers with migraines on a monthly basis, sleep training would have been the answer we were searching for as our daughter woke up every 30 minutes wanting to nurse. My nipples felt like they were about to fall off! I didn’t understand, why won’t my 3 month old sleep and just let us sleep! It was AWFUL. On top of that, I got a migraine the next day and could barely function without having to take Ibuprofen. It was a battle of “we need to try something different and I don’t want her to cry.” I messaged and searched and the only thing I found that the “experts” say would work is to sleep train. You’re not supposed to sleep train until 4-6 months though, so what do I do now? I was worried that she wasn’t eating enough or we were doing something wrong. So we tried a bunch of things and nothing worked.
4 months rolls around and we try the Ferber method and we were about 5 minutes in or a little more and I couldn’t handle it anymore. If you’re not sure what that is, it’s a method where you leave you baby for a certain amount of minutes in their crib and leave the room, you go back in to let baby know you’re there, comfort them and leave the room again and increase the time between going into baby’s room. I grabbed my baby and held her as she whimpered in my arms, taking her a few minutes to settle down. “This isn’t for me” I thought. “There’s no way this is okay.” I talked to another mom who sleep trained and asked how she was okay with it and she told me how she cried the whole time her baby did. I thought to myself, “There’s no way this is normal.” Isn’t that where our instincts kick in? Aren’t we told to listen to them when it comes to our babies? Why do we leave our babies to cry themselves to sleep? Especially at an age where they are still so tiny and need us!
I stumbled upon this blog during one of the night wakings and felt some sort of pressure lifted off of me. She talked about how you don’t have to sleep train and your child will eventually sleep. I know, I Know that’s not really helpful for right now. But to me, it was- in some weird way. I think it was because I felt that something was wrong & knowing that it was okay that this was happening & it was normal for my baby to wake so often , helped me sigh of relief.
Did you know that not even adults sleep through the night? We wake up too, we just change positions and go back to sleep. It is a type of survival mechanism that we all use & our babies are still trying to make sure they’re safe with us there! Not only are night wakings a normal part of life but babies go through a lot in their first 2 years of life, developmentally. So when baby is waking up crying there could be a number of reasons why- like those pesky teeth coming through. I do also believe it depends on the baby though. A babies personality can change a lot of things! It also depends on what you and your partner are comfortable doing. For me, I was more at peace sleeping with my daughter next to me rather than her sleeping somewhere else.
Co-sleeping was our thing, so I just had to figure out how we could make the best out of our situation without sleep training. (Check out this link for safe co-sleeping guidelines)
So here’s what we did to optimize sleep and cope:
- Find a sleeping arrangement that works best- We co-slept and eventually put our baby down on a separate mattress next to ours, on the floor.. even though she still ended up in between us after I would get tired of switching beds in the middle of the night. (We did this around 8 months.)
- I quit my job- I understand not everyone can do that- but our family priority was me taking care of our baby. With not having a job, I was able to take advantage of nap times and sometimes I did nap with my baby during the day. Other times, family came and helped hold her and watch her while I slept.
- Trying to go to bed and wake up at the same time is something I figured out a little later but it has drastically improved my energy levels.
- Avoiding sugar & processed junk- this is something I tried doing to help with my migraines as well as having improved energy despite the lack of sleep.
- GO TO BED EARLY – if it takes you a while to fall asleep, try laying down even earlier than your “goal” sleep time.
- Go on a walk and get some fresh air and exercise.
Hang in there mama, you’re doing great!!
Your Whole Mama,
Pam
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