Kickin' It With Quincey: The Sleep Situation Continued

I just reread my last post about Quincey's sleep habits, or lack thereof. My, how we have come a long ways in just a couple months but, it has not come without its challenges. And, when I say challenges I mean some downright dirty challenges both physically and emotionally.

Joe and I decided that after vacation to Wyoming it was time to employ some sleep training. I could no longer go on doing what I was doing.

Up to this point we had fallen into the reactive co-sleeping method. Not out of choice but out of pure necessity. I was spending the majority of my nights (and days for that matter) walking endlessly in our bedroom with Quincey in my arms, going shhh shhh shhh, until finally after around 40 minutes she would fall asleep enough to attempt to put her down. But, things never ended there, putting her down was usually a bust and before I could ninja my way out of the room without making a noise, she had already stirred, lost her binki, and was on her way to being full blow awake. So, I would turn around, completely exhausted, and start the process all over again. I did this so often and racked up so many steps walking back and forth in our bedroom with her that the desperation led me to believe the stupidest things. For example, I was convinced she liked the left side of the room more than the right but not too far to the left because then the air from the ceiling vent might hit her face and disturb her, she didn't like the sound the floor made near the bathroom, the sound machine sounded best when she was in the far right hand corner of the room, she liked to be rocked in the rocking chair only when her eyes started to close, not before, or not after, and she didn't like one long shhhhh but rather three short shhh shhh shhh's. It was getting absolutely ridiculous. Usually, after the third time of doing all of this she would stay asleep long enough for me to slip into bed and settle in for a couple hours before, yes you've got it, she would notoriously awake again. The time I spent in that room trying to perfect this sleep procedure started to become like a torture chamber.

I especially dreaded nap time. Without the natural sleep drive that nights provide, naps proved especially difficult. It wouldn't have been so bad if all my effort would have paid off but, the discouragement I was feeling time after time when Quincey would wake up after only a 30 minute nap was proving too much for me to take. I was literally spending more time getting her to sleep then she was actually sleeping. And then of course, with only a 30 minute naps, she would start rubbing her eyes again in an hour and I would know that I would shortly have to make that track up the stairs with her again to start over.

For the last month Joe had been sleeping in the spare room because, there seemed no other option than to finally just hold Quincey in bed all night with me. Then I could pop her binki back in her mouth every time it fell out while trying to get some much needed sleep myself. With allowing her in the bed with me, I was able to maintain some sort of sanity for the upcoming day.... but just barely.

Month after month of all this was a mixture for disaster. And disaster finally struck. I told Joe that I was no longer treading water, I was full blown drowning and could absolutely not do this anymore. I was so drained and exhausted that I was emotional and angry. I remember being at my dad's house for vacation and feeling jealousy toward the stupid cat because I would see the cat sleeping and I didn't get to. My dad would say, "well, I'm going to bed guys and I would cringe inside just wishing that could be me. And seeing Joe sleep started to make me see red. It also started to take a toll on me physically. Because I was so sleep deprived, my immune system was so shot that just when I thought i couldn't take anything else, I developed mestitas.

This had to be the beginning of the end. There was literally no other option than to start sleep training.

I did my due diligence and scoured the internet to learn about all the different sleep training methods out there. Everything from the Ferber method to the Chair method. But, without fail, every actual human that I talked to who has a child all told me to use the same method. The good ol' Cry It Out method.

I wanted to start with the Ferber method which is going in to comfort her after 3 minutes, then 5 minutes, then 10 and so on and so forth until she falls asleep. Joe and I had unknowingly used this approach a few time before when I had tried to implement some self soothing training with Quincey. It never worked though. It seemed like her seeing me every few minutes just stimulated her even more. But, I wasn't ready to just let her cry it out yet. At least that's what I thought.

Three days before we were going to begin sleep training, it was the middle of the night, Joe was in the spare room sleeping and there was nothing I could do to keep Quincey settled. Finally, at 2am I decided to put her in her bassinet and I left the room. I couldn't do it anymore. Quincey cried straight for 3 hours. She finally drifted to sleep at 5:15am. Even after all that crying she only stayed asleep for an hour but, there was no turning back from that point on.

It was going to be the cry it out method and it was going to start now. I figured if we were going to do this, we might as well rip the band-aid off completely and transition her to her crib as well.

The first night Quincey cried for about an hour but after that, she stayed asleep for longer than she ever did when I would pace the floor with her. The next night it took even less time, the third night she ampted up her game again and cried for quite a while, but after that night, she started to finally sleep and I started to feel a sense of peace and like a human being again. It was SOOO freeing.

Grace kept telling me to PUT HER IN HER OWN ROOM! SHe swore that she would sleep better and so would we. I really didn't want to because the powers that be say that she should sleep in the same room as her parents until at least 6 months to prevent SIDS. But after two nights of sleeping training, once she had fallen asleep, we were so worried to jinx it and wake that Joe opted to sleep in the spare room, and I was so worried to even roll over in bed that I would go downstairs to the couch to sleep. Grace said, "Tara, how stupid is that! Quincey is fast asleep in your guys' room while you guys aren't even sleeping in the same room as her anyway. Put her in her own room!" Here was Quincey, fast asleep in our beautiful bedroom while Joe slept in the spare room alone and I slept on a couch. Joe never quite understood why I was adamant that she stay in our room and later told me he was very relieved when Grace vocalized what he had been wondering for week. Then she also said something else that was quite genius and so obvious but I had never thought of it, She said, "just put her in her own room, leave her bedroom door open and leave your bedroom door open and we are still literally within like 12 feet of her." DUH! That was all I needed to hear So, without anymore hesitation, I broke down her crib yet again and moved it back into her own room.

Since that day 3 weeks ago, Quincey has been sleeping in her big girl crib in her big girl room and she has never slept better and my quality of life has improved 10 fold. I am a human again.

And oh, by the way, it only took one night before Quincey's door started to remain closed for the night.

She still wakes up a couple times a night but I don't mind it. I don't mind getting up to nurse her a little because I can just give her one quick snuggle, lay her back down, and she falls right back to sleep again.

We still have some things to work out like she still won't nap longer than 30 minutes and she wakes up awfully early in the morning (5am) but those are such minor issues compared to what we were dealing with.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of her sleeping in her crib. We have a camera set up in her room that I can take pictures with from my phone.

In this first picture she has rolled back over to her back from her belly but got her arm pinned underneath herself and couldn't get it out so she just decided to play with the crib slats with the one free hand she did still have.