It has been a tiring few nights but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. As many of you have heard Joshua has had one lingering bad habit of night waking. Initially this was for the need for an overnight bottle but has since simply turned into him waking himself and getting frustrated at not being able to get himself back to sleep. He's actually *extremely* capable of putting himself back to sleep but in the wee hours of pretty much halfway through the night it has trended to one of us going in, giving a bottle to calm and then holding him until he goes back to sleep.Unfortunately since he's also become VERY sensitive to any minor stimulation so once down it became almost an Indiana Jones like technique of snatching the Idol from the pedestal and avoid triggering the rolling boulder of Joshua wake up.
Three nights ago, we began a sleep training technique from "the baby whisperer" called "Pick up/Put down" Essentially when he pulls himself up and begins to fuss/get upset you gently lie him back down and softly tell him it's time for sleep. At his age, so long as he doesn't become very upset, you essentially are just doing the "put down" portion since any additional stimulus can drag things out. Essentially we are *being there* for him but allowing him to be the one to wind himself down and back to sleep.
Joshua, unfortunately, developed a nasty cold right before we'd planned to start this technique so I decided to go back at it the first couple nights and decided to take a new approach for myself. My issue is Joshua *always* wakes up when I try and lie him down and it becomes a circus performance of him bouncing all around his crib. Me being the clown most of the time..I guess I should expect it ;)When he began this game, I decided to simply step out of the room with a "it's time for bed Joshua". This first night, after about 20 minutes of babbling and banging the bars (but not getting at all upset) he actually went back to sleep on his own.After 3 nights of the full on Pickup/Putdown we're proud to say, after some venting and frustration, Joshua has put himself back to sleep every night!
Josee had spontaneously decided to start in on this road Saturday night, after she got rundown by the Joshua wakeup boulder, and they both worked their way through this necessary but frustrating change together which has renewed our hope for full nights sleep in the near future. She's a pretty amazing Momma to take on such a difficult and trying change in routine and succeed to such a degree. He's a pretty darn amazing kid to be able to match her in this success too!
It's a very proud feeling to get this kind of a connection with your child and for him to realize that a fairly drastic change is acceptable. He's an incredibly smart little boy and making us prouder everyday.
Back to work tomorrow for me and how I'll miss getting to spend some great quality time with my family. Even without the progress we've made it was still an extremely rewarding family time!
Mark
No comments:
Post a Comment