We LOVE this saying around here. And for the first 3 months or so of Oban's life it was our mantra. We used any and every method/trick/crutch we could find to help Oban sleep. It started with the swaddle and by 4 months old we were cycling through a rather large mixed bag of sleep aids. The swing, the Boppy, the pacifier, the bouncy ball, rocker, bouncy seat, car seat, carriers, co-sleeping, humidifier, foil on the windows, white noise machine, gripe water, mylicon, shhh'ing, my nipple, zacks nipple, and margaritas. Just kidding about Zack's nipple. And I hold off on the booze until after I put him to bed and there is at least 4 hours till the next feed. Chillax. I know what Kellymom says.
I don't think Oban was collicky because for the most part he is a REALLY HAPPY smiley baby. In fact after about 8wks, we all fell into a pretty respectable sleep groove and had whittled the sleep aids down to swaddle and pacifier. He went down to bed easily and would wake twice to feed. Once around midnight and then again around 4am and he'd go back to sleep easily. Zack returned to our bed (he was sleeping in the guest room when we were waking every 2/3hrs) - and we were all one big happy sleeping family. I never minded the night feeds and getting more than 2hour sleep stretches was a godsend. Because Oban is exclusively breastfed, I never expected 8-12hr stretches.
I know babies have growth spurts. I know babies have different needs at different times. I know that they cut teeth, and have bad gas, and are generally miserable sometimes. I know that predictability is an unrealistic expectation, and that there will be times when Oban just needs a little extra TLC.
A cold we all got at the beginning of his 3rd month triggered a most unexciting backslide. It felt like we had a newborn all over again. And those first 8wks sucked big hairy donkey balls. We exhausted every trick in our bag and in the process moved him into his own room, in his own crib. Nothing was consistent. Not his behavior, or ours. He began waking within an hour of being put down at night and the night wakings that ensued were out of control! I chalked it up to growth spurt - and sickness - but this went on for a month. It was taking longer and longer to quiet him, he started refusing the pacifier, and he was beginning to boycott the swaddle with exorcist-like writhing. We tried to wean him from it around this time - and it always turned into a trainwreck.
The body writhing thing (and im not talking gassy/refluxy writhing) - the I'm Just Pissed writhing - was really beginning to test my limits. I had a really hard time just rocking him when he'd do this. The screaming was hard enough. Zack had mastered going to his happy place, but I felt like I was in an insane asylum trying to be with him. I felt totally trapped - staying with him was making me angry, and leaving him to cry felt like I was abandoning him. So I would teeter back and forth, and wound up crying at the end of every session out of exhaustion and a touch of self-loathing. Because I couldn't figure out how to remain calm and unaffected by his protests, I felt incapable of providing him with what I thought he deserved. It was not good.
Towards the end I was bringing him to bed with me just so I could just roll over and comfort him throughout all the nightwakings. Zack had moved out again. And I was a complete ZOMBIE. Something had to give.
It was around this time that we all started noticing that Oban was growing leaps and bounds (surely no coincidence). He was beginning to roll, exploring his voice more, using his hands and fingers with more precision, and a new 'fuss' was emerging. The sort of unenthusiastic 'wahh'. The one that says 'I'm bored and I want you to pay attention to me'. Throughout the day when the 'wahh' would turn into a cry - we began to give him a minute or two and just talk him through his funkfest. And he'd come out of it. On his own. It was this development combined with his deteriorating night sleep that we decided maybe he would be receptive to some kind of sleep training.
I had Weissbluths book, and No Cry Sleep Solution, and knew about Ferber. Pantley (NCSS) advocating 'no cry', Weissbluth advocating 'let 'em cry! GET ER DONE!', and Ferbster sort of in the middle, but more Weissbluthy, who came up with this 'graduated extinction' which only prolongs the torture for everyone. The only thing worse than 'graduated extinction' would be if I were to dangle my naked breast over the crib every 10 minutes while he was trying to fall asleep. You know, so he would know he was not alone. That the boob was with him.
One night we sat around discussing the merits, and bullshit, of each - and decided to freelance. We tried Ferbers method. Oban cried for an hour during which Zack would go in the room intermittendly and try to comfort him - then leave again - which only pissed Oban off even more. After an hour of hearing my baby cry I thought I was going to pass out or vomit, or claw the dogs. My body ACHED to go to him. I told Zack I couldn't do it and bailed on our impromptu plan. It all felt very wrong. I went and fed him and rocked him to sleep. I spent the next week obsessively googling everything I could about sleep training. I was torn between thinking that intellectually it was a good idea, to trying to rationalize how something that FELT so horrible could actually be good. The maternal instinct to protect and soothe had to mean something, right?
There was also the question of his age and whether he was ready for it.
I finally came to the conclusion that I believed he was ready, and that waiting for 6months to come around, would only be harder on him. We would go full-tilt extinction (letting him cry without dangling breast in his face) and commit to 3 days. If in three days we didn't see marked improvement, we would hold off and wait to try again at 6 months. I figured that three days of even a worst case scenario, would likely not scar him for life.
And THEN...we ditched his bath and storytime, tossed him in the crib with a down comforter and his stuffed animals (it would be a long lonely night without them), a bad case of the runs, on an empty stomach with a moderate grade fever and a fifth of Captain Morgans. And we didn't even tell him goodnight!
Tomorrow I promise. The real account.
