sleep training is not for the faint of heart

as with all sleep transitions my daughter has gone through - being swaddled, being unswaddled, being sung to, rocked, bathed, then massaged (not in this order!), we have followed her cue and have tried something new when the old tricks stopped working. or more accurately, when the old tricks started to frustrate her to no end.

peanut is now a year old. she has gone in and out of routines, and in and out of short bursts of good sleeping. i'd say in general though, sleeping has always been an issue with her.

for the last couple of months until about a week ago, i would give her a bath, wrap her up in a nice thick towel and have a big hug and sing a song, change her into new diaper and jammies, breastfeed her and then put her down. sometimes after a bit of a drink she'd even point to the crib "asking" me to put her down. at any rate, she'd soon be asleep, and if she wasn't i or my husband would pick her up and sing to her a bit, and put her down again. and off she'd go... until she'd wake up a few hours later for a feed and and snuggle, and i'd curse myself for not having done anything about this sleep thing yet. i can't be up every couple or few hours any more! i'm falling apart! my hair is grey! this has been going on for a year for god's sake!

about a week ago, she started to resist sleep again altogether. the old routine didn;t work. in fact, my husband's or my presence seemed to frustrate her even more. we tried to do the gentle "cry it out" simply because it seemed more our speed, more assuring, less traumatizing for her (and for us!) she didn't want this. she'd cry even harder. finally, at the end of my rope, through a big yawn i told my husband that i can't live like this anymore. though the last thing i want to do is let her "cry it out", i really can't think of another solution. and so last night, poor peanut cried it out, and successfully put herself to sleep after an hour and a half. (this is a shorter crying period than what we were facing previously). she woke up at 5:30am for a feed, i fed her and put her back in her crib. i thought she'd just drift off with milk in her belly, but up she got, lungs full blast. i'm crying as i write this! it's killing me! but she did get to sleep on her own again, and in a shorter amount of time.

now today, naps have been another story. she hasn't had one yet... i broke down and retrieved her from her crib for a nap this morning because two hours were rolling around and i just couldn't take it anymore. now we're trying it again... and guess what my soundtrack is this very moment. my nerves are shot. all i can think of is the massage i'm going to need after this episode.

anyway, everyone says this is going to get easier and it's an amazingly valuable lesson for peanut. she needs to learn to self soothe, and she needs to learn to sleep through the night. my doctor has been telling me this for a long time. psychologists say that children are not traumatized by sleep training. and truly, peanut was happy as ever this morning after two bouts of it. but when i "saved her" this morning from her nap, she refused to leave my arms. she ate her lunch in my arms, when i read her books, she snuggled into me, if i broke our physical connection for but a moment, she'd cry. perhaps "saving her" was the worst thing i could have done. because now she thinks i'll do it again. consistency is important. i just don't know how i'm going to be strong enough to do this.

so far the strength comes from telling myself that this is good for her, that there is no other solution we could come up with, that the whole family needs to sleep... but meanwhile, back in reality, my heart is broken for feeling as though i've broken her heart.