It happened. I am still in shock.

It took 50 weeks or 350 nights but it has finally happened.

My little boy actually slept through the night!  7:45pm - 4:50am.  NINE HOURS.

In fact, he has done it twice.  He did the same last night too.

So what is different?  I mentioned that I decided to stop feeding him in the night.  I think this has definitely been a factor.  But the first two nights of not feeding were sleepless.  He woke frequently (every hour) or he woke for long periods - 1.5 hours of crying in our arms.  It sounds cruel.  But he wasn't trying to feed. He wanted to be asleep and was struggling to settle.  We gave him water so he wasn't thirsty and we gave him lots of comfort.

On the third night he woke once, around 3am and had a drink of water.  But I was struggling to settle him and I realised that he couldn't get comfortable in my arms.  He is a lot bigger now and I don't think my frame can adequately support him for a comfortable sleeping position.

The next night, I suggested that he needed to re-learn how to go to sleep in his cot.  No rocking.  So at nap-time that day, I insisted that he lie down in his cot and I rubbed his back to get him to sleep.  It took lots and lots of lying him back down and him moaning and complaining, but eventually he got the idea.  When it came to bedtime, he was happy to lie down and have his back rubbed to go to sleep.  I could hardly believe it!  He had one wake up around 3am again, I gave him a drink and lay him back down to sleep without an issue.

For the last two nights, he has slept through until nearly 5am.  He has then either been settled back to sleep or I have given him his morning feed.

The other major difference in approach has been for me to give him supper at 6:15pm.  He has had a weetabix and oatmilk and then his evening feed at 7pm.

I wonder how long it will continue for? Is this it now? Will he continue this pattern?  Or are we experiencing something fleeting?

I really hope that this will generally be the norm now.  I am exhausted and it is going to take a long time for me to recover from this tiredness.  But I will do anything for my little boy and if he goes back to needing me in the middle of the night, I will be there for him.

I am very glad that we didn't go down the controlled crying approach.  But I do think that what we have done constitutes some form of sleep training.  My little boy needed to be shown that he can fall asleep in his cot.  Eventually, we will gradually withdraw, so that he can go to sleep without us in his room.

I am so proud of him.  And I am so proud of us.  We have given our boy what he needed, and in return, we have got what we need - SLEEP!!

Mother's Sleep Deprivation

My little boy is going to be one this month! I can hardly believe it.

What's more, I can hardly believe that I have not had an uninterrupted night's sleep for nearly a whole year.  Sleep deprivation is a special kind of torture.

"Forcibly depriving a person of sleep is a profound assault on the entire biological system at the foundation of that person’s mind and body." Psychology Today, Dec. 2014

The sleep deprivation being referred to here is extreme, where a subject is forced to stay awake for long periods of time (180 hours being quoted at one point).  It is hard to know where my sleep deprivation fits in because I do get small amounts of sleep every night, broken up into 1-3 hour chunks.  

When I read the effects of sleep deprivation, I recognise some of the symptoms  - "unpleasant feelings of fatigue, irritability and difficulties concentrating...poor judgment...considerable increase in appetite...apathy... lethargy and social withdrawal." Psychology Today, Dec. 2014.  I am sure that these things can be experienced in varying degrees and certainly with more severity for the poor person who is forced to stay awake for 180 hours in a row.  Yet that shouldn't negate the fact that mothers, who experience continual sleep interruptions and lack of sleep over a long period of time, are bound to suffer too.

Since I have gone back to work, I have found it more and more difficult to cope without sleep.  In particular, I think this is down to the mental demands of my job as a senior leader-cum-teacher in school.  If I am totally honest, I have found recalling even my timetables a challenge at times - something I am used to doing at speed.

I feel like something has to give.  I need to be fit to look after my baby.  I need my husband to be able to share the load.

So I decided two nights ago, not to feed my baby overnight anymore.  No controlled crying still or anything like that.  But offers of other comfort and water, if he is thirsty.  A weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  The process, however, is by no means easy...

Miss you Mummy

I know that my baby misses me in the night.  When he wakes up and feels confused that he is sitting upright, he wants me to make it better.  I know that he needs me.  I get that.  I just wish that he could stay asleep for extended periods of time and need me less often.  

I know he misses me in the night and I miss him too.  While his daddy is working away, it is so tempting to just pull him into bed with me all night.  We might both get more sleep this way (or not... I am not deluded).  But it wouldn't be fair to set up this pattern to then insist he goes back in his cot upon his daddy's return.  So I must persist with settling him.  SEVEN times last night.  It felt relentless.  

A well meaning friend has suggested that controlled crying isn't as bad as I might think and that after a couple of nights, her baby is now sleeping through most of the time.  My problem is that I know that we could get through the crying, but I worry about the effects of any period of crying (without comfort) on my baby.  Until I can explain to him what I am doing in a way he understands, I just don't feel comfortable about it. 

Needing or even wanting warmth and comfort in the dark hours is normal.  Why else do we pair up as a species and sleep next to each other in double beds?  I want my baby to know love and care.  24 hours a day.  And I suppose that comes with a price.  My sleep.  

I just hope I am up to the job.

Tough love - tough for who?

Last night was hard.  I mean really hard.

My husband was away working and so there were no other options but for me to get bedtime sorted.
We did our usual bedtimes rituals and my son fell asleep feeding - I thought I was onto a winner.  But how deluded could I be?  My son woke up as soon as his head hit the cot.  The screaming started but I managed to put that to a stop by picking him up and showing him the Peter Rabbit and Friends pictures on the walls.  He loves an animal impression and saying goodnight to all the animals is part of our ritual when he goes to sleep in his cot.

I put him back down in his cot and his little face screwed up, mouth open wide and the crying started again.   This time Lupo the puppy and Elli the elephant came into play.  My son was calm again.  But then cot gymnastics ramped up - flips, turns, rocking, pulling up to knees, gnawing the cot bars.  I decided to let him get it out of his system for a few minutes.  Unfortunately he had other ideas.  I tried picking him up.  He just arched his back and yelled.  So I put him down again.  More cot gymnastics.  Every time I tried to turn him back round to lying down he yelled. I decided to try and nurse him again to calm him down.  But it was hurting me.  He was clamping too much and I was too sore.

Back in the cot, and a little calmer.  He started biting his fingers.  Then mine.  I hadn't given him any pain relief for his teeth (tooth number 8 is currently erupting) so I dutifully toddled off to administer teething powders and Calpol.

This time, when I went back in the nursery I put Eva Cassidy on the stereo and held him upright, gently swaying to the music.  He would settle his head temporarily on my chest but then after a few seconds start squirming.  And repeat.  Then he noticed the animals on the wall again and was trying to reach for them.

My back couldn't take it, so I put him in the cot.  The beginnings of a screaming fit but I swooped in with the taggy to distract him from that enterprise.  It worked!  He started to play with it gently.  Then he turned on his side!  Hooray! I had cracked it.

Nope.

Don't be silly.

Life is never that simple.

He turned over and spotted me.  And burst into tears.  I tried to settle him in his cot.  He wasn't having any of it.

By this time it was 10pm - over 2.5 hours since I had first tried to put him in his cot.  I decided that nursing was the only option left.

Finally he went to sleep.

For one hour.

Then I settled him just by holding him  -this isn't too bad, I thought.

Then he woke again 40 minutes later.  I was so tired myself that I brought him into bed to feed.

That was my night from then on - constant nursing.  Every time I tried to release him, he yelled and I was too tired for other tactics.

In the early hours, he sneezed and bit me.  Before I could remove him, he sneezed again, clamping down a second time.  It took every ounce of will power not to scream and swear myself.

I sighed and pulled him over to the other side.

My back is killing me today.  All this rubbish rocking that doesn't work.  The bending over the cot.  The sleeping in a twisted position.

My husband is back tonight.  I really hope that this means things will be better.

Who am I kidding?

The Sickness

A recent vomiting bug in our household has caused me much grief - piles and piles of washing, constant mopping up of sick and number twos and a baby who wants to nurse constantly.  Well... during the day that is!

Actually, the advent of this bug has also resulted in some of the best night's sleep I have had in ages.  I guess my little one needs the sleep as he is fighting off this bug.  Now, don't get me wrong, we are far from 'sleeping through the night' territory but I am being woken up twice per night rather than four to fives times.  My baby has slept for four and a half hours in a row! It is like a miracle has happened.

Perhaps it is that I have been ill and less available during the night?  Perhaps it is because I have had to stop him nursing too much as he can't handle the quantity and so we the collateral benefit is that I am night weaning him without even realising it?

I am not counting my chickens.  I know that as he gets better, there is every chance that he will resume his old habits.  But for now, I may live in hope!

Hope for the Hopeless

While I was at breastfeeding support group today, one of the other mums was asking about how sleep was going in our household.  Her son is 5 and a half months now and I think she was looking for a chink of light on the horizon.  It pained me to report back to her that at 8 months, my son's sleep is as bad as ever, if not worse.

We have had two unsettled weeks of being away, teething, learning to crawl, tummy aches from milk intolerance and probably a raft of other reasons that I am not even aware exist... oh yeah, and apparently there is an eight month sleep regression.  What the ..? I am speechless.

Why does sleep have to be such a hard skill to master.  As a fully grown up person, I have no recollection of the struggle to sleep in my formative years.  As far as I was concerned, I was born being able to sleep for several hours in a row.  I am terribly mistaken of course!

It is incredibly difficult to even contemplate going back to any sort of sleep training until my little man has finished this current stage of teething.  But then there are all the other developmental milestones - am I expecting too much?

But the panic does rise occasionally as I realise that I am starting back to work in a month's time... oh my goodness!

Three time's a charm!

Most people wouldn't consider this a good night, but for us, last night was good... only the THREE get ups!

Three easy get ups, with no more than a feed before he was back in the cot sound asleep.  I would be really happy if this 11pm, 2am, 4:00am pattern sticks because then we can work at stretching the gaps of sleep a bit more...

Watch this space!