The most difficult hurdle we have yet to reach is trying to get 14-month-old Sienna to sleep through the night. At two months, she would sleep for an uninterrupted 5 hours. I thought we were one of the lucky ones. Being completely against any cry-it-out (CIO) techniques, I felt a sense of accomplishment and was sure to tell anyone who would listen, especially those moms and grandma's who lived strictly by and openly preached their beliefs of CIO.
We flew back home to NY when she was four months for her Blessing Ceremony. Somewhere between the Carolina coastline and the New York City skyline Sienna decided she would sleep no more! She gets up now every 2-3 hours, more frequently when she is teething or sick. Sometimes shushing, rubbing her back or just saying "mommy's here" gets her back to sleep - more often than not, she needs to be nursed back to sleep.
During the past 10 months, she has had a few good nights, sleeping at least 4 hours without waking, but the bags and dark circles under my eyes are evident that we are sleeping less. I hate telling people that she doesn't sleep - the sneers I get when I say we sleep together I don't let her cry and she wakes every few hours to nurse. "You are still nursing her..Doesn't she have teeth"? Even her pediatrician says nursing is futile to sleeping through the night and recommends the Ferber method of sleep training. All I hear his saying as he summarizes the plan is LET HER CRY!!
If it wasn't for my small group of friends who are also against CIO, I would feel lost in a sea of CIO proponents who are getting their 8 hours of sleep. My friends at least understand me. Their babies don't sleep either. Even Sienna's dad wants a goodnight sleep and urges me to just let her cry. We have given up sleeping in the same bed 7 months ago, constantly getting in and out during the night kept him up more than he is already.
We tried herbal tea blends, sleepy time smoothies, following a routine. Getting to sleep is usually never the problem, its getting her to stay there.
There have been several times, when I think I am at my wits end. The crying starts and I sit there in bed, telling myself I will let her just cry - she will fall asleep. Thirty seconds is about all I can last. She cries out, "Mamma" and I come. Isn't that what I am supposed to do anyway? She is 14-months-old. She needs me. How else can I teach her that when she needs me later on in life that I will be there, other than going to her when she needs me now?
Yay, first post! My pediatrician says, on the subject of CIO, which I also don't do, "kids are manipulative, but they are also very adaptable." I don't think that my daughter Nora is "manipulative". She just wants to nurse at night, which seems reasonable, so she does. But I do agree that she's adaptable. If she or I were really not getting enough sleep for more than a week I might think about sleep training--right now we're lucky, unless she's sick she's usually up twice and goes right back to sleep. Is there anything other than Ferber or the extinction guy or waiting until the child is 2 and a half? We tried to let Nora cry it out one time intentionally, and another time accidentally, and both times she vomited repeatedly and I just can't imagine doing it again unless she or I was really miserably exhausted and had been for a few weeks. Hope we don't get to that point.
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