Cole sleeps

If you've been following my blog for a while you know that Cole hasn't always been a great sleeper. (In fact that is probably the understatement of the year). Pretty much for the first year of his life he woke up every hour-and-a-half to two hours. We considered it a miracle if we got three or four hours of uninterrupted sleep in a row. Really. It was so bad, and I blogged about it so much that I could probably link up every single word I've just written to separate blog posts on the topic. So I won't bother. If you're new to this blog, you can always look under the category of "sleep" and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. We tried desperately to figure out the why of it all. Why wouldn't he sleep for longer than two hours in a row? Why would he wake up an hour and a half after I put him to sleep after it took me an hour to get him down?

But after a long while it finally dawned on us that he was just wired that way and nothing we could do would change it. We just had to wait and see and hope for a light at the end of our long dark tunnel. We spent that first year in a sleep deprived fog, bickering at night about who would go in to his room to help him go back to sleep.  We didn't use Cry It Out. As a child who was left to cry herself to sleep, I did not have the heart for it. I couldn't let my baby think no one was there for him. I also firmly believe that even if we had tried it, it wouldn't have worked. So we soldiered on.

When he turned a year old, he started sleeping longer stretches. I remember the first time he slept for 13 hours straight. We had gone out on a date night and when we got home, he was still sleeping and had been for several hours (totally unheard of on date nights.)  The next morning, we were so astounded, we literally woke him up because we were afraid for his life. So silly, I know, but it was so uncharacteristic of him. It was so uncharacteristic of him that I wouldn't blog about it for months because I was so afraid of jinxing it.

Irony of all ironies is that when he started sleeping these longer stretches, we continued to wake up in the middle of the night. First it was because he'd wake up, but then magically fall back to sleep. But after a while he stopped waking up. Problem was - we didn't. We'd wake up between 2 and 4 a.m. every.single.night. It was a little ridiculous, but our bodies had gotten so used to this wake up time that we'd be getting up every night, peeing, snacking, talking. Consequently though, we were exhausted. Finally my midwife gave us some good advice. Stay in bed. No lights on, even if you have to pee. It worked.  Cole had his bouts the next school year of waking up in the middle of the night every so often, but he was getting much better at staying asleep.

The challenge that lay ahead was putting him to sleep. I still rocked him to sleep in the recliner and lifted his growing, sleeping body ever so carefully into the crib so as not to wake him. However, most nights, I did inadvertently wake him, and we'd have to go through the process again and again. Me rocking, him drifting, me waiting. We did this in the dark, and I was usually half asleep by the time it was ready to put him in his crib. I was cranky and tired because I was going to bed later than I needed to and was not reaping the benefits, since I had to wake up two hours earlier than he did. Although I treasured my time with him, I resented that I was the ONLY one who could put him to sleep. He absolutely resisted when SuperDada tried to put him to sleep. If I was home, he'd have a screaming fit, and I wouldn't be able to take the screaming because my resolve sucks. This struggle continued, of course, when SuperDada left his full-time job and it was my job to put Cole to sleep four nights a week because SuperDada was working. The only way I'd get a "night off" was if we went on a date night and left the house. Thank goodness for Gramma. And this was the way things went right up until the night I went into labor. After that night everything changed.

SuperDada and I were away from Cole for longer than we ever had been before: three days and two full nights (the night I went into labor doesn't count because I had already put him to sleep). When we got home, I couldn't lift him or put him on my lap. For better or worse, SuperDada put Cole to sleep for an entire month. I would read Cole a story or two and then SuperDada would take him into his room, read him a few stories and rock him to sleep. Finally, the third week, in preparation for his return to work, SuperDada converted Cole's crib to a toddler bed. His last week home, I put Cole to sleep without rocking him. I read a few stories in the chair next to him, went over to the recliner and sat there while he placed his hands behind his head and drifted off to sleep. All on his very own. I didn't need to let him cry to do that. He had finally learned how to do it himself.

This monumental event has taught me some good lessons. Namely, it has taught me that sleep is learned.  That understanding alone gives me the strength to deal with sleep issues that may arise with Bevin. It also gives me the strength to know that not letting my children cry themselves to sleep is the right thing to do.  By being there for Cole night after night for two and a half years, Cole has finally learned how to put himself to sleep. I taught him that.

A perfect way to fall asleep

Although this night was not as quick and easy as other nights, he still fell asleep on his own.