Everything is coming up Rosey

I'll use one word to summarize this week: Roseola.

High fevers, followed by a few days of whining and then pop, out came a bright red rash. Poor guy. And all along I thought the fever was due to teething. So I gave in and went to comfort and feed him during the night, just days after he had finally conquered a 7:30pm to 5:30am shift.

And now that the red rash is gone so are his wonderful sleeping habits. Last night, he was completely inconsolable so after 2 hours of crying we gave up on Ferber, turned off the lights and the monitor and just let him cry. I honestly don't know how long it lasted but when he was still asleep at 7:30am this morning I was panicked to make sure he was still breathing. Oh, the wonderful world of cry it out.

The email below was forwarded to me by Riley's mom. This one is great for a chuckle.

Sleep Training For Adults (From A Baby’s Point Of View)

OK, here’s my situation. My Mommy has had me for almost 7 months. The first few months were great – I cried, she picked me up and fed me, anytime, day or night. Then something happened.

Over the last few weeks, she has been trying to STTN (sleep through the night). At first, I thought it was just a phase, but it is only getting worse. I’ve talked to other babies, and it seems like it’s pretty common after Mommies have had us for around 6 months. Here’s the thing: these Mommies don’t really need to sleep. It’s just a habit. Many of them have had some 30 years to sleep–they just don’t need it anymore. So I am implementing a plan. I call it the Crybaby Shuffle. It goes like this:

Night 1–cry every 3 hours until you get fed. I know, it’s hard. It’s hard to see your Mommy upset over your crying. Just keep reminding yourself, it’s for her own good.

Night 2–cry every 2 hours until you get fed.

Night 3–every hour.

Most Mommies will start to respond more quickly after about 3 nights. Some Mommies are more alert, and may resist the change longer. These Mommies may stand in your doorway for hours, shhhh-ing. Don’t give in. I cannot stress this enough: CONSISTENCY IS KEY!! If you let her STTN (sleep through the night), just once, she will expect it every night. I KNOW IT’S HARD! But she really doesn’t need the sleep, she’s just resisting the change. If you have an especially alert Mommy, you can stop crying for about 10 minutes, just long enough for her to go back to bed and start to fall asleep. Then cry again. It WILL eventually work. My Mommy once stayed awake for 10 hours straight, so I know she can do it.

Last night, I cried every hour. You just have to decide to stick to it and just go for it. BE CONSISTENT! I cried for any reason I could come up with. My sleep sack tickled my foot. I felt a wrinkle under the sheet. My mobile made a shadow on the wall. I burped, and it tasted like pears. I hadn’t eaten pears since lunch, what’s up with that? The cat said “meow”. I should know. My Mommy reminds me of this about 20 times a day. LOL. Once I cried just because I liked how it sounded when it echoed on the monitor in the other room. Too hot, too cold, just right–doesn’t matter! Keep crying!!

It took awhile, but it worked. She fed me at 4am. Tomorrow night, my goal is 3:30am. You need to slowly shorten the interval between feedings in order to reset your Mommies’ internal clocks.

Sometimes my Mommy will call for reinforcements by sending in Daddy. Don’t worry Daddies are not set up for not needing sleep the way Mommies are. They can only handle a few pats and shhing before they declare defeat and send in the Mommy.

Also, be wary of the sleep sheep with rain noises. I like to give Mommy false hope that listening to the rain puts me to sleep sometimes I pretend to close my eyes and be asleep and then wait until I know Mommy is settling back to sleep to spring a surprise cry attack. If she doesn’t get to me fast enough I follow up with my fake cough and gag noise that always has her running to the crib. At some point I am positive she will start to realize that she really doesn’t really need sleep.

P.S. Don’t let those rubber things fool you, no matter how long you suck on them, no milk will come out. Trust me.

My Old Friend Ferber

The last time I blogged about sleep it was an issue of Alex not drinking enough to get him through the night.

Well I've since realized my supply is keeping his tummy full, we have taken a few courses of action, none of which have provided the end result we were hoping for.

What is that end result you may ask? I'm not looking for 8pm-8am sleeps here. Just the 5 hour blocks we were getting prior to the 3-month mark.

Our first attempt involved taking the pacifier out of Alex's mouth every time he fell asleep. So we'd let him suck to soothe and then remove it so he wasn't sucking in his sleep.

That didn't work.

Or maybe we just didn't give it enough time.

Then we tried the Ferber method. Night one was rough. Hearing him cry was heartbreaking. He made himself so hysterical that there was no way to soothe him: no cuddling, no rocking, no singing. The only thing that would work was putting the pacifier in for a second to get him back to composure and then remove it so he could try to fall asleep on his own, a bit more relaxed.

He was up about 4 times with crying spells lasting 30 minutes.

Night two. He cried for 45 painful minutes and fell asleep until about 3 am. And then after 30 minutes of crying and me surfing the net paranoid, came across a conversation about the Ferber method causing brain damage, so I quickly got up and put the pacifier in his mouth and officially gave up on Ferber.

The newest tactic deals not so much with sleep training but with slowly removing the pacifier as a crutch. I came across Bye Bye Binky, a method that supposedly has seen a ton of success. The concept? Make the sensation of sucking an unpleasant one. How do you do that? Well, the first step is to put 7 pin size holes in the head of the pacifier so more air is inside.

In two days, I will cut a small tip off of the nipple, then a bit more, and finally a vertical slit down the centre of the nipple.

Hmmm...after writing that I'm thinking that all this technique might accomplish is some profit accumulation for the pacifier industry. But at this point there's no harm in trying. But then again, if he refuses the pacifier he'll have to find another way to self soothe and that eventually might lead to the same kind of tears that Ferber created.

Oh the joys of sleep!