Some Thoughts on Sleep Training

Dealing with baby sleep habits is rough. You start out with a newborn who is able to sleep long stretches for a few days, but you are told to wake that baby up at least every three hours so it doesn't get jaundice or get in so deep of a sleep that it succumbs to SIDS. Then all of a sudden things change. That baby no longer wants to sleep. Ever. You start to regret every single time you woke up that baby when it was a newborn and kind of want to strangle all of the nurses and consultants *ahem breastfeeding class instructor* who told you to do so. You wonder if that is the reason why your child doesn't want to sleep anymore.

Then you try to read sleep books and any advice you can find just to get some dang sleep! And you suddenly realize you are a failure for rocking your baby to sleep, nursing baby to sleep, and for heaven's sake do NOT let your baby sleep in a swing...even if that is the only way she will nap. So you try to listen to the advice to make up for all the terrible decisions you have made as a parent in just a few short months. Apparently now your child will never be able to soothe themselves to sleep for the rest of her life because you have already been helping her fall asleep and therefore she is doomed to be an insomniac.

As you continue to search for answers, you keep seeing the phrase "drowsy, but awake." What the heck does a drowsy baby look like anyway? Pretty sure the baby goes from super content to overtired monster in about 5 seconds and since you aren't telepathic, you missed your prime opportunity to put your baby to bed and again are a failure. So I guess you can just try again at the next nap since you will have to once again bounce your baby to sleep. You get really really really sick of reading the phrase "drowsy, but awake" and kind of want to scream every time you try it and it doesn't work. Oh the other obnoxious phrase, "watch for the first signs of tiredness." You watch your baby like a freakin hawk to catch those tired signs but they don't come, or they come 15 minutes after she wakes up and you know she can't really be ready for another nap already...but sometimes you try anyways just to see and guess what...she really isn't ready for a nap!

Before having your baby, you tell yourself you will never ever let your baby cry it out. It's just too cruel. Then you decide maybe those people aren't crazy and you should try it and you do. Once. Maybe twice. And it sucks. Seriously sucks. You shut yourself in a room down the hallway and check back after a while to see if it worked. It didn't. Sometimes you let your baby cry it out because it's just easier than dealing with trying to get the baby to sleep but it never actually works.

When crying it out doesn't work and that whole "drowsy, but awake" thing still doesn't work, you kind of just accept that babies wake up in the night and you just get less sleep, and you are totally okay with helping your baby fall asleep because let's face it, it makes you feel special that you can soothe such a precious little miracle.

Even though you are super duper exhausted all the time, you still love your baby and decide that it's worth it to wake up with her, and know that somehow, someday, you may just get some well-deserved and needed sleep.

p.s. for those who don't reeeeally know me...this was meant to be humorous. :)