sleep, or lack thereof

This week, I'm thankful this week that I'm a quick reader. And by quick I mean that I've plowed through about 11 books on sleep. They range from Babywise, Great Sleep Habits Happy Baby, SleepEasy, The No-Cry Sleep Solution, The No-Cry Nap Solution, Good Night Sleep Tight, Twelve Hours Sleep by Twelve Weeks Old, and a few more. No area has caused me more grief over what to do than sleep. I feel really good about most other things about parenting, but with such varying beliefs about sleep training and the like, I feel like I was drowning in everyone else's opinions... even those people who don't have kids yet. Before Owen arrived I full believed in crying it out. And then I tried it once and about died listening to my little man's screams. He cried so hard he threw up. So that was out.

But he doesn't sleep. And now that we're going on 100 days of not getting more than a 3-4 hour chunk of sleep, you can tell why I'm feeling desperate. And when logging his naps, he's only getting about 1/2 the sleep most of the books says he needs. He wakes up groggy, with rings under his eyes and overall, he's just not a super happy kid because he's always fighting sleep.

But I still really believe in not being a "baby-led" household. NO offense whatsoever if this is more your philosophy. One of the biggest things I'm learning as a mom is that you know your kid and your personality as a mom the best. So do what works for YOU and never apologize for that! Sorry, I digress.

So after my months of research, I think the book after my own heart is The Baby Whisperer. I've actually only read her handbook called The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems By Teaching You to Ask the Right Questions.
I know, obnoxiously long name. She's not a sleep doctor and she's from England so when I read it, I picture the Super Nanny reading it to me with an accent. :) Now I read the book in one sitting, so now I'm going back and re-reading and scouring the forums at www.babywhispererforums.com. Her main approach is using the EASY (eat, awake, sleep, you) approach. And since we've already followed that routine from day 1, this book makes sense to me.

Here are my 3 main goals of "sleep training":

1. Owen will be able to lay down for a nap or bedtime without the 20-30 minutes of rocking/walking that we've been doing.


2. Owen will extend his naps from one sleep cycle (45 minutes) to 2 sleep cycles (1 1/2 hours)


3. Owen will sleep for a 4-5 hour chunk at night and then be able to go back to sleep. Also, Owen will only need 2-3 feeds at night, instead of the 6 he wants right now.

We jumped in headfirst today even though I don't know exactly what I'm doing. While it's much more involved than this, here is what the basic premise is for going to sleep. She says to have a wind down routine and then kiss and put your baby down. If he starts crying pick him back up, pat and shh until he calms down. The minute he calms, lay him back down in the crib. Even if the minute he leaves your shoulder, he starts crying lay him all the way to mattress before picking him back up. Also keep a hand on him at all time and talk softly (I repeatedly said "Mama loves you, it's time to go to sleep.") Repeat until asleep. That is way oversimplifying things, but that's the general jist I used today. I felt like it was a good middle ground approach.

Our first nap, I was in his room for about an hour. I picked him up and put him down about 30 times. But the second nap, I picked him up 4 times. And for bedtime tonight, I picked him up once before he turned on his side and went to sleep. She recommends staying with him for 10 minutes repeating your phrase to be sure he's truly asleep. While it was an exhausting day, I think I'm going to stick with this. She's got some good strategies to extend naps which is what we'll start to tackle next. I've canceled many of my normal activities this week so we can really focus on this. I'll keep you posted on the results and if I would recommend this method to any other sleep deprived momma.