Sleep Diary - Days 1-2

If you've been keeping up, I've still been struggling with sleep for William.  He wakes constantly during the night and demands mama's milk to go back to sleep.  If I refuse, he screams until he wakes himself up completely, which is bad for me because I want to sleep.  We got off track before because *I* want to keep sleeping and when I'm suddenly roused from a REM cycle, I don't remember the ultimate goal of teaching my son to put himself back to sleep without nursing.  I realize we need to break the association of sleep and nursing, but it's a slow, slow process that starts with baby steps.  So here we are on Day 2.

Day 1

Probably could have been better, but I learned that trying to start bedtime for a toddler at 6:30 p.m. when dinner hasn't been made and he's still revved up to play--cause the sun is still way up in the sky--is a tough endeavor.  Bedtime actually started around 8:30, which put him in bed around 9:30ish, but it wasn't a total lost.  As I said, I learned something.

Day 2

Bath was done by 7:30, and we were trying to wind W down by 8:30.  He didn't fall asleep until 9:15.  It was rough.  He squirmed and screamed and fought it hard.  I finally let him wander around a nearly pitch black room, and he couldn't get the door open himself.  So after only a minute or two of trying, he crawled back in bed and asked to nurse.  I let him, but he had already gulped down the majority of the milk and was just "chewing" on the nipple, so I took his baba away.  He protested a little, but ended up falling asleep pretty quickly.  So far, the key to get him to sleep while not on the breast is rubbing his back in slow, steady circles.  I have been doing this movement while he nurses, hoping it would help with the transition. So far, it seems to settle him pretty well.  The next hurdle is tonight.  What do I do if he wakes demanding the breast?  I need to decide now and mentally prepare myself for another sleepless night if he screams himself awake.  It's also easier to remember to say "no" if I've already decided not to.  Maybe he can tell in my voice that screaming will get him nowhere, and he'll just go back to sleep on his own.  Yep.  That's what I'll do.  I'm not going through the steps of night-weaning him again.  He knows, and at this point, I think he can handle cold turkey.  (Sigh--I think it'll be a screaming night, but I'm hoping I'm wrong.)

There seem to be many things I can do to help get my toddler to sleep better and more independently.  Honestly, I love bedsharing with him...except when he wants the breast all. night. long.  I can deal with him moving and squirming (probably because he doesn't do it much), but him waking me for milk every 90 minutes is a bit much.  When my fitness/sleep tracker tells me that I got 7-8 hours of sleep and then that I woke up 5+ times, I feel angry and just want to cry.  Sometimes I do.  It's in those moments I hear all the advice that I ignored about sleep training my infant.  It's haunting and demoralizing.  I never realized how much I'd have to justify my parenting decisions to myself.  I don't really have anyone to answer to, but I see the consequences of my decisions.  I guess that's what's haunting me: the 'what if' of the situation.

Well, here's my answer to that What If.  There's really no way to really know because at the time, I truly felt my infant son needed to be next to me in the bed to sleep and feel safe and secure.  His first week on earth was spent in a hospital, not at home, and he had to spend 24 hours of that week under a blue light screaming because he wanted to be held.  Maybe he remembers a bit of that.  I don't know, though.  I could just be saying all this to make myself feel better--to find some reason this is so hard.  In any case, this is where we are.  Trying to teach a toddler how to put himself to sleep and break his sleep association with nursing.  Baby steps.

Anyway.  It's nearing time for me to try to put myself to sleep because he's gonna be rousing soon.