Friday, July 17, 2009

To Sleep, or Not To Sleep....

My poor little H-man is teething....constantly. Every shirt he wears is soaked with drool, his little fingers are pruney from being in his mouth all the time, and I swear he's eating my couch....seriously....I caught him chewing on a pillow the other day.

Oh but the worst part.....the sleep. H is usually such a GOOD sleeper (12 to 13 hours a night! Woot!), that when he wakes up crying I have no problems with letting him sleep in our bed. But for the past 2 nights...it's been torture! I have a feeling that, although he shows signs of teething, he just wants to sleep in our bed. The look he gives me when I come in to get him is like he's saying "Finally! Now take me to your bed so that i may stretch out and cause extreme discomfort to all but myself!" He even giggled and laughed when I set him down in our bed like that's what he wanted. I love it when he's with us, but only every now and again. The child is so big now, and I'm just a little tired of getting kicked in the ribs constantly throughout the night. He likes to sleep sideways in the bed...so in addition to us teetering on the ends of the bed to accommodate our wonderfully sweet and hurting little boy, Sonny is constantly getting whacked in the face by little hands, and I get to have the feet of fury.

So this morning, Sonny and I decided that we can't let him get the best of us tonight. It's heartbreaking, but yes, we are going to let him cry it out. Now, let's be real. If he's still crying after 20 minutes....I'll go in to calm him down. Ok? I'm not just going to turn down the monitor and shove towels under our door so I can't hear him. But....I'm not going to let him in our room. This probably means another night of no sleep for me....but I have to get him back to the way he normally sleeps....heavy....and long. I've not been a huge supporter of the CIO method, but, I do think it works. I did it once before when I was trying to get to a point where I could just put H down for his nap instead of rocking him asleep. He was getting way to heavy to put down smoothly, so my choices were let him cry and put himself back to sleep, or have him nap in my arms. Even the experts say don't let them nap in your arms.....so.....

I think that kids like to test their limits, mainly because they are trying to figure out what they are, and crying is just a tool to see how much they can get out of you. I think that there are times when you have to let them cry to teach them what their limits are, especially when they are at that in between stage where they don't fully understand you're words. I can't tell H to lay down and go to bed, he just doesn't understand. Letting him cry is the best non-verbal way to get that point across.

I know a lot of hardcore moms out there are super against this method, but, I just think that each mom has to do what's best for her and her child, and this method may be the best way to teach them to fall asleep on their own. We're going to try it tonight and see how it goes, and hopefully my little guy will realize that laying back down and going to sleep is a much better option than crying it out....

1 comment:

  1. I am not looking forward to those days. Try those teething tablets and let me know how they work. Might have to stock pile them if they work...
    -Heather

    ReplyDelete

We love to hear your thoughts, good bad or random! We love comments of all kinds!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
 

Blog Design by Eedee Design Studios