My daughter hasn't been a good sleeper for most of her 14 months. Until she was a year old, she would wake up several times a night. She was only able to sleep through the night without waking once I stopped breastfeeding. We have had two serious rounds of cry-it-out sleep training, once around 10 months and once near her 1 year birthday. In both cases, it took about a week of training before she was able to fall asleep peacefully on her own and sleep through the night. Each time, I was thrilled. I hated the cry-it-out process but was desperate to get some damn sleep. Unfortunately, each of those successful periods of nighttime peace lasted just under two months before being derailed entirely (by a cold, or by flinging herself out of her crib one day). Faced again with nighttime chaos, each time we have resorted to doing whatever (rocking for an hour, or co-sleeping or both) would get her to go to sleep. Survival.
Right now we're back in one of those periods of survival. Bambina's getting 6 teeth at once, is crabby during the day and seems able to cry for a looooooong time at bedtime, so our half-hearted attempts to get her back on the straight and narrow with yet another round of sleep training have been abandoned. She's ended up in bed with me most of the week.
Here's the thing: When she sleeps in our bed, she sleeps a full 12 hours. She doesn't wake up at all during the night. She is able to sleep even with the bedside light on while I read. When she sleeps in her crib, however, even during the best of times, she is not such a good sleeper. We have to tiptoe around the house like ninjas avoiding creaks in the floor in order not to wake her. And she wakes up at 4:00am or 5:00am, not 7:00am, as she does when she co-sleeps.
I'm torn. On one hand, I'm told that she is testing us by starting up with the crying again and refusing her crib. That we are reinforcing bad behavior by rescuing her from her crib when she screams for half an hour. That she'll still be sleeping in bed with us when she's 8 if we don't cut her off now. And that seems reasonable to me. I want her to be able to sleep well on her own. On the other hand, I must ask myself: But WHY then, if this is such a bad habit, is our house peaceful when we just put her in our bed when she seems to require it? Why does she sleep in longer in the morning? I don't want her to be unable to sleep in her own bed. But if cry-it-out is so great, then why do we seem to have to keep "retraining" over and over?
Price My Space:: Living Room Part 2
17 hours ago
4 comments:
If she gets a good night of rest and you and your husband get a good night of rest, then maybe allowing her in your bed is not the worst thing in the world. At least during this teething process. But you should run this idea by Courtney tomorrow since she seems to be a wealth of great information and her babies both turned out to be very good kids.
Loni
I agree, getting good sleep is more important that doing what the "experts" say. We coslept with our youngest until he was 18 months, when he was ready to sleep on his own then we moved on to his own bed. Sleeping well and having a secure and happy child was more important than what other people might think or say. If need be, just smile and lie through your teeth. No one really needs to know where your kid is sleeping.
I was strict with my first about sleeping in his own bed, and relaxed with my second and had her with me more often. They both now sleep great in their own beds so in retrospect I'd let her sleep with you when she needs it.
Goodness, I so identify with this post. I am mom to an 8 month old boy who has slept with us since his birth. When we co-sleep, he may nurse a few times during the night, but other than that is generally peaceful, no crying, thrashing, etc. I try and put him down in his crib in the evenings a couple of hours before I am ready to go to bed. At first this worked out pretty great. He would sleep for a couple of hours and then wake up hungry, at which time I would bring him to bed with me to nurse and sleep the rest of the night. But as of late, he is not sleeping for a couple of hours before waking up hungry. I'm lucky to get 45 minutes out of him! He is readily teething, and that seems to be causing him quite a bit of discomfort, so I've pretty much just given in.
Naps are another source of frustration. He will sleep for sometimes up to three hours during the day - if I nap with him. If not, it can be the biggest battle of all history, which usually ends with cry it out. Even then, he will not sleep more than an hour at naps.
Co-sleeping is great, but napping and other issues have not been addressed by the literature I've read about it.
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