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...