What is sleep training exactly? Basically, it's doing (or NOT doing) whatever it takes to get your child to fall asleep and stay asleep on their own. BOO! Not my idea, but the doctor says it's best. We are trying, but it is so hard to hear him cry!
We were instructed to NOT rock him to sleep because he then feels that the only way he can fall asleep is if someone is rocking him, and cuddling him and playing with his hair and breathing in his sweet babyness. When he's had his bottle, we need to say our love you's and give kisses night night and then sweetly place him in his bed. Oh and we have to leave him there.
He cried 11 minutes the first night, but they were heart wrenching minutes. Tonight is night number 2, and I think it was only 5-7 minutes, but it was so sad. He was crying to where I could hear him choked up in his breathing. He was ALL worked up. Brian broke his stern facade and had to go check on Luke, which made none of us feel better in the end. Luke still screamed, Brian had then seen the saddest face on earth and had to leave him there, and I just sat here on the couch knowing my baby wanted me to hold him. Terrible.
Supposedly he will "sleep up to 12 hours," and that's something to covet when you love sleep as much as I do, but I'm not sure it's worth the sacrifice. Luke has been in his crib since he was 6 weeks old. I've always tried to do what's best for him, but I'm tempted to take this one for me. I love rocking him to sleep at night.
At his appointment he weighed in at 20 pounds exactly. He's perfectly healthy, and he only had to get a finger prick this time! Next time, more shots. We have to try and feed him his cereal in the mornings again because his iron was low. He did alright with that this morning because I mixed some fruit in with it.
Thank goodness he's starting to find some things he likes! Lately, he eats mostly:
Baby Cereal or Oatmeal
Yoplait yogurt (he really likes the lemon kind)
Cheese grits
Mashed potatoes
Grammy's lasagna
Jennie-O Turkey/gravy
Bread or buns
Chicken salad from Chik-Fil-A
Scalloped Potatoes
Cheesy Crunchy Baby Snacks
Strawberries, Grapes, Melon
So I plan our meals around finding something he can eat. That's a task!
Luke has a great variety of food that he's eating! He's got the dairy, meats, veggies, fruits and breads in there!!!! Im jealous!
ReplyDeleteAnd I know how you feel about rocking your baby to sleep. They aren't babies for long. After Ash got her sleep pattern down I would rock her to sleep once a week for my own sake.