Operation Cry It Out...

Many of you know we have struggled with sleep issues in our house. Kate was a pretty terrible sleeper until she was about 22 months and in a "big girl bed" and I didn't think anyone could be much worse...until we had Luke. At first he was a dream, I thought we'd hit the jackpot with a great little sleeper. As the months went on his sleeping habits became worse and worse. I rolled with it, though, thinking he'd follow in Kate's footsteps and start getting better after a year. Many of my friends had had great success with letting their babies "cry it out". I knew it worked but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. That is until I really stepped back and looked at our what our situation had evolved into. It was taking me, on average, an hour or more to get Luke to sleep at nap and bedtime and he was spending about 2-3 hours in his crib only to end up in our bed for the rest of the night. This was leaving him in a constant state of tired that was affecting his behavior and development. And it was leaving me without any patience leftover to deal with him or Kate during the day. It had to stop and thanks to some very supportive friends and MANY prayers we're well on our way to a much healthier, happier, sleeping household. I know this is a really long post but I'm writing this more for our own record of a pretty significant event in our lives.

Last night, we did our regular bedtime routine: bath, bottle, rock...only this time I rocked him for a couple of minutes, gave him a kiss, put him in his crib and left. We had a plan to endure what was sure to be a torturous night. To save Kate from getting upset over Luke screaming (and, boy, did he!), we borrowed "Sleeping Beauty" from my parents and made it a special movie and popcorn night. With his bedroom door and the hallway door closed and the movie turned up nice and loud we weren't able to hear him. We decided to allow 20 minutes to go by then we'd go in to let Luke know we hadn't abandoned him, lay him down and leave the room. We'd repeat this every 20 minutes until he was asleep. I was thrilled to find I didn't have to go in once! At 20 minutes I went to his door and could hear him whimpering, "Mama, mama..." (side note: I think that was more heart breaking than the screams) so I took a couple more minutes to change my clothes and by the time I came back to his door I couldn't hear anything. I waited another 20 minutes and went in to check on him- he'd taken his pants off and stripped the pillow of it's case but he was sound asleep. I had imagined hours of him screaming, myself in hysterics, and feelings of guilt like I'd never before experienced. But, God is good and He answered prayer in a big way. Even throughout the night 20 minutes was the magic number. Luke woke up a few times and only once did I have to go in to give him his paci and lay him down. The other times he settled himself down and went back to sleep in under 15 minutes, once in just 5 minutes. This morning I'm elated that we made it through the first night and everyone is in great spirits. Thanks to all for your prayers, words of encouragement, and support!