cry it out

it's no secret that brady has been a difficult baby.  he is as opposite as humanly possible from the baby that abigail was.  that includes sleep.  even though i've done everything the same with them (y'know... following the sleep, eat, play pattern and putting them to sleep awake and all that sort of stuff), one never slept less than a minimum of 7-8 hours and was sleeping 12-13 every. single. night. when she was a mere nine weeks old... and the other one... well, there's no rhyme or reason and the only thing consistent is that the sleep will suck.

it would take far too long to try to get up to speed from the very beginning* but 99% of the time, brady wakes up at least twice a night.  and twice a night is a GOOD night.  several weeks ago he was showing signs of improvement and every other night would have a long stretch (between 6.5 and 8.5 hours). that lasted for about a week and then he was back to waking a million times a night.  a little over a week ago, he had a night or two of longer stretches and i thought he was on the right track again.  until we spent a week straight in a sleepy state of hades (which was just awesome since christopher was out of town that entire week and it was crazy busy with my calling and a million other things).  my day job was caring for two kids... and it was challenging.  but the night shift was worse.  it involved spending 1-3 hours average getting brady to sleep (normally between 9 and midnight) and then getting up with him about every two hours (sometimes more, sometimes less) until we were up for the day at 8 or 8:30.  and sometimes he wouldn't go back to sleep.  and sometimes i'd nurse him on one side, go downstairs, be juuuust falling asleep, and then hear him crying again.  so we'd do the same thing on the other side.  and it wouldn't work.  so then i'd be rocking him to sleep with a binky.  and then if he woke up when i put him in his crib then i'd be rocking him with his binky again.  and sometimes he would just decide that he was wide awake but would like to be held for hours on end.  and so that wasn't fun.  and my days were getting tricky because i felt like i'd been drugged.  literally i felt like i was living on nyquil... saying stuff that didn't make sense, forgetting even the most basic things, and on and on with stuff i can't even explain.  i'm sure a number of people think i'm a complete idiot now with some of the stuff i've been saying/doing lately.  the long term sleep deprivation is soooo much worse than just pulling an all nighter or two.  it's not getting a decent night's sleep in five months.  i spent considerable time contemplating cry it out.  as i told my friend, i think heavenly father was letting me hit rock bottom and giving me that final push.

my original plan was basically to do cry it out from the very beginning like i did with abigail (except that she never actually cried) and always put my sleepy newborn to bed awake and let him fuss a bit, if needed, to learn to self soothe and fall asleep.  that was great for the first two weeks until reflux happened and brady wouldn't stop crying... evvveeeerrrrrrr.  but then finally he was medicated and eventually moved to his crib but by that point we had sleep props... like a binky and just nursing him to sleep if he was having a rough time.  i was always afraid to let him cry because they say that crying really aggravates their reflux and makes it feel even worse and what kind of a terrible mother would i be to do that to my child?!  and then brady would show signs of improvement and i'd think "it's okay... i can wake up twice a night with my child... that's no big deal."  but then he would get worse and i'd be up with him five times during the night and be like "this kid neeeeds to cry it out!" but i wouldn't because i know major sleep regressions happen at four months and i didn't want to have to re-cry it out... i'd rather just wait and do it one time.  so then on saturday he turned five months exactly and i thought... "now is the time!  except that we're going to utah in a week an a half and then we'll be home for a few weeks before we go to atlanta and the beach for three weeks."  maybe traveling would undo our sleep training progress.  but maybe travel would be better because of our sleep training progress.

so sunday night i was talking to my christopher about this.  he was totally on board.  not that brady's crappy sleep habits affect him so much, but he happens to be extremely supportive of my decisions for our child and really trusts my judgement as a mother that does a lot of research on this stuff.  i am really grateful for this.  so while i was telling him this, it was about 9pm and brady was crying in his crib upstairs.  then i asked him if he would go upstairs to help brady.  "i thought we were letting him cry it out?"  "oh, we will but not tonight... he's got his big appointment tomorrow morning and i don't want him to be tired for it."  and then my honey went upstairs and spent twenty minutes rocking that kid to sleep.  and then as i was falling asleep at 11, brady woke up and started crying.  after nursing him on both sides and trekking up and down those stairs three or four times, i just shut his bedroom door, i shut my bedroom door, i turned our baby monitor on silent, i put my head under a pillow... and i went to sleep.  sometimes i work best when i "just do it."  anyways, we will never know how long he cried.  and at first i felt guilty about that but now i feel A-OK about that.  i woke up at 4:15 to the sound of him crying... my first thought being "crap!  has he been crying for five hours?!?!"  i listened to him cry for 15 minutes before going up to his room.  i took him out of his crib, burped him and held him for a minute while i patted his back and calmed him down (he calmed down easily so i'm preeeeetty sure he'd just recently started crying because he wasn't too worked up) and put him back in his crib.  and then i laid in my bed and read cry it out stories on my phone while i listened to his distant crying.  he was asleep by 5:15.  he woke up crying again at 6:50 and honey got him up since he was already awake doing work in his office.  there was no point putting him back to bed because we had to leave early for his appointment at the hospital up in aurora.

so that was night one.

and holy crap was that kid tired on monday.  he slept sooo deeply all day long and i had to keep waking him up from his naps (one i forgot and didn't wake him up until it had been 3.5 hours... whoops) and during his awake time he wasn't terribly fussy but he was sooooo tired.  so luckily it didn't screw up his appointment (which went amazingly well) and he still laughed and smiled tons during the day and loved me just the same.

night two i decided to continue on.  we put brady to bed at 8:30 and surprisingly, he went right to sleep without a fuss (although that is the norm for daytime naps, he ALWAYS puts up a fuss in the evenings/night - like anytime after 5pm).  i was so so so sure he would wake up within 45 minutes or at least before midnight because that always always always happens.  i still shut his door and mine but kept the monitor on so i would know when/how many times during the night he woke but could easily turn the sound off and go back to sleep.  well, i woke a million times that night and brady NEVER DID.  i was awake at 11 and midnight and 1 and 1:30 to 2:30 (honey couldn't sleep and i had to get out of bed eventually to go look for him and see where he went... by the time i finally found him outside i was wide awake), 3:30 (that's when my christopher finally got ready for the day and left for the airport for his daytrip to st. george), 5:30 (when the sun rises), and finally at 7:50 when i heard my brady waking up for the day.  WHAT?!?!  11.5 hours of sleep?!  even if it was a fluke, i'll take it!  that's almost 3 hours more than his previous record!  and then his tuesday daytime naps were awesome as usual.

night three - same plan.  we put him to bed at 8:45 and he went right to sleep without a peep.  i heard him at 11 but turned down the monitor and went back to sleep so i'm not sure how long he cried or if he woke up anymore after that.  then i woke up at 5:30 with the sun (so did my honey, he has zero ability to sleep in) and turned the sound on the monitor back up.  i heard brady at 5:45 (that's a pretty typical wakeup time for him... but then again, what isn't?!) and listened to him cry off and on for less than ten minutes before he was out.  i heard him crying off and on again just after 8 but he was back asleep before i even could go up to get him.  he let out a cry at 9 and maybe stirred for less than a minute but that was it.  at 10am, i finally went up to his room and woke him up for the day.  over 13 hours... i think that is a record for the longest time i've gone without seeing his face.  and i love my kid but it was glorious.  i'm so proud of him learning to self soothe and sleep more independently.  once again, naps today have been flawless.  like if he doesn't wake up in the next ten minutes, i'm going to have to wake him from this nap he's enjoying right now.

so praise be to "cry it out" because hallelujah, there may be hope** for this little devil angel!

*can you believe this is the "short version" because i really can't begin to imagine how long it would take to type out the full length feature presentation.

**but let's all cross our fingers and say a prayer just to be on the safe side...