Sunday, May 31, 2009

Repeating Sleep Training

Kaylani was sleeping so well for awhile. 10+ hours every night. No crying. Went down easy. Woke up refreshed and happy. And all of that meant Mommy and Daddy got 8+ hours of sleep, didn't cry, fell asleep real easy, and woke up refreshed and happy. Well that's gone. And we want it back. Now.

Kaylani's almost 7 months old and she's been a great sleeper pretty much the whole time so I really shouldn't complain that this latest stretch started last Saturday in Baltimore. But the fact that she's been a great sleeper is what makes times like this so very bad. It's like we're new parents again when this happens. We haven't adjusted to 2 hour naps at night because we haven't had to. I'm sure we'll adjust in a due time, but I'd rather not. We're going to fix this. Now.

Our intervention hasn't started before tonight because it's been a crazy week with the whole Baltimore trip, a short but intense work week, and then a weekend birthday party for Yeh Yeh (which by the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY YEH YEH!!) with Daddy's side of the family in town. All of that basically meant that when Kaylani cried at night, one of us went and picked her up to calm her down. And since she's learned to manipulate us by crying, she would wait for us to pick her up, then pass out immediately. It ends tonight.

I know I sound really mean right now, especially to those of you who don't believe in sleep training, but it has to happen. And because sleep training means that we let her cry it out for an entire night whether it's 20 minutes or 3 hours, I feel real mean doing it, but it's worked. Every time we've had to do this (which is twice), she's gone back to sleeping 10+ hours all by herself for at least a couple of weeks. So it has to be done. Tonight.

We may be rushing into this, but there's a reason it has to be tonight. Other than the fact that we're really dragging lately because of this lack of sleep, there's the fact that we have another trip coming up. In 3 weeks, we're headed to Cape Cod for 4 days for Tommy and Gretchen's wedding, which means we'll be sleeping away from home again. But more specifically, Cape Cod marks the first time Kaylani will go to sleep without us because Yin Yin is going to watch her while we're at the wedding. And if she's waking up every 2 hours without us, it's not going to be pretty for Yin Yin.

No matter how bad we're going to feel tonight as we sit in bed and listen to her cry while staring at her through the video monitor, hopefully we'll stay strong. We've made this decision together because it's going to work in the long run. It better work in the long run. Please let it work in the long run.

5 comments:

Otter Thomas said...

Trips to Baltimore and Cape Cod. I saw you bought a $150 baby food blender. I want to be your friend.

Tom Sherman said...

Stay away, Jon's toys are mine!

JonnyTam13 said...

Ha, you can both be my friend. I've got plenty of toys to go around (all because they've been donated to us).

SurprisedMom said...

I inadvertently did the sleep training bit for the oldest. She didn't sleep through the night until she was eight months old. We were walking zombies with bags under our eyes that fell to our knees.It only took one night with both the baby and I crying for her to learn to go to sleep. Ah memories.
And what is with boys and their toys . . .

JonnyTam13 said...

What's with girls and their boy toys?