Sleeping Intervention

My sweet sweet Daniel is a horrible sleeper. I have come to realize that this is not his fault but purely mine. Before having Katelyn, I read every book there is to read about sleeping, breast feeding, motherhood, etc. It is amazing how quickly my mind forgets things. Because I followed a good schedule with Katelyn, she was always an amazing sleeper. She took great naps and slept through the night very early on. I believe that part of it was that she was simply just a good sleeper, and part of it was because of this schedule I had for her. She is my good sleeper.

Daniel, on the other hand, is quite the contrary. He has never slept well. He was a very colicky baby early on and has slept in our room next to the bed, and many times in the bed with us, for all of his ten months of life. Well, the little guy is now ten months old. Surely he is old enough to sleep in his own room and sleep at least mostly through the night. Because he was so colicky when he was born, I developed bad habits with him. To sooth him, I would bounce him, walk around the room with him (Steve as well), and rock him to sleep. I have continued to do this all ten months of his life, out of habit, and the poor little guy hasn't a clue on how to soothe himself to sleep. And so the intervention began.

A friend of mine came over yesterday and just straight out told me what to do to solve Daniel's sleeping problems. All things that I read about and studied about before having Katelyn and somehow had forgotten. Things like, have a sleeping schedule (duh!) and teach him to soothe HIMSELF to sleep instead of spending hours and let me tell ya, hours of rocking and bouncing the little bugger. So I put him down for a 10 am nap and he cried for a straight hour before falling asleep. The good news? He fell asleep on his own!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was afraid it wouldn't ever happen and that he would cry forever. But he didn't and he LIVED too! I checked on him after 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, 15 minutes, etc. I never picked him up, I would just lay him back down and pat his back for a minute. He eventually fell asleep. The saddest part ever was when he finally did stop crying. I heard him sniffling and so I went up to check on him. He was on his knees holding on to the bars of the crib with his eyes shut and his head was jerking back and to the side because he was asleep. I had to pry, literally pry, his hands off of the bars and lay him down where he slept for a whole 40 minutes. Ha! Better than nothing right?

The intervention continues. Potty training down and now sleep training to take it's place. If it's not one thing, it's another. So many joy to being a mother!!!