Forging Ahead

We moved on to the next step and completed three more days of night weaning/sleep training. So far I'm hopeful.

The Second Three Nights

Again, the nursing to sleep stops at 11 p.m. When he wakes up, hug him and cuddle him for a few minutes, but do not feed him, put him down awake. Putting him down awake is a crucial part of this whole endeavor because it really does teach him to fall asleep with a little less contact and then a little less. Not feeding is the big change during these three nights. One-year-old babies can easily go for those seven hours (or more) with no calories. They like to get fed a little through the night, but physiologically and nutritionally, this is not a long time to go without food...

...During these second three nights, some babies will cry and protest for ten minutes at a time and some will go for an hour or more. Your toddler is aware that you are right beside him, offering comfort and soothing. It just isn’t the mode of comfort he wants at the moment. It is hard to listen to him fuss, but it will work. I believe that a well-loved baby, after a year or more in the family bed, will be the ultimate beneficiary of his parents getting more sleep. Not coincidentally, the parents benefit “big time,” too.

Night Seven

Sebastian was down by 11pm and slept through until 5 am! Because it was so close to our chosen time I let him nurse and we slept for another couple hours or so.

Night Eight

He was tired tonight and was falling asleep in his high chair of all places. Of course as soon as I carried him up to bed he became a wild thing and was wanting to play *sigh*. He was asleep earlier than usual, however, and was asleep by 10:30 pm. He woke up around 4:45 am. At that point, since he went to sleep earlier, I nursed his as if it was after 6. Are we caving? Maybe but since he has a big chunk of sleep I feel ok "caving".

Night Nine

With visions of Britney Spears on Glee dancing in his head (he was mesmerized by that episode- LOL)Sebastian was down quickly with hardly any nursing and asleep by 11pm. Alex has a man cold so he chose to stay up for a while so not to disturb us. He came back to bed around 1:30 am and woke us up. I was not happy and neither was Sebastian who cried and immediately wanted to nurse back to sleep.

According to Dr. Jay's method I couldn't nurse him so I rubbed his back (which he didn't like since he kept shoving my hand away), Alex sang to him (which he also didn't like), but miracle of miracles, he stoped fussing and put himself back to sleep within ten minutes, possibly five.

Next thing I knew it was 7:50. Hallelujah!

A Training We Will Go

Thursday afternoon Alex and I discussed Sebastian's "training" (ugh, I hate calling it that), and we decided to go three more days with the first step. We really didn't want to push it.

Night Four

He was asleep my 11pm. I was not. I couldn't sleep due to the stupid ass University students who live in our complex and those that feel the need to cut through our complex while going to theirs. Seriously, drunk girls screaming their heads off at 2 am. Dudes, "whooooo"ing until all hours. I hate them. HATE. I went to bed around 1am and I think I woke Sebastian up because he started whimpering and I needed to nurse him. Course it could have also been Alex getting up to use the bathroom, or a combo of both. After that he slept until 5am without waking up again.

Night Five

He was asleep by 11pm, but up two times in the night. He also woke up mega early at 6am. I don't know what that was all about. His daddy and I were certainly not happy about it.

Night Six

He was asleep by 11pm but woke up a few times. When he ate, he really ate. I'm thinking he didn't eat much during the day, solids wise, and so was making up for it at night. He again woke up early, this time 7 am. I am hoping this early waking thing ends because I am waking up more exhausted than before.

Tonight we are going ahead and starting the second step. I'm a bit worried but we'll see how it goes. I plan on giving him a bedtime snack to see if that helps curb any night nursing.

Sleep, Perchance to Dream - Following Dr. Jay Gordon

Sebastian is 14.5 months and I have realized that I have been sleep deprived for way too long. I do really like our family bed and I still enjoy nursing him but I am at the point where I need a break at night. This led us to the decision of sleep "training". We are not a CIO family at all, so following Ferber and Weissbluth were not an option for us. I used Elizabeth Pantley's "Pantley Pull Off" from her book No Cry Sleep Solution when Sebastian was younger but now was the time to pull out the bigger guns.

I was having a hard time even deciding what to do because most sleep training seems require the child sleeping in a crip or in another room. We do neither so it was important to find a method that allowed for bedsharing. Then I found Dr. Jay Gordon's nightweaning method of sleep training. Dr. Jay not only allowed for bedsharing, he preferred it, so we dove off the deep end and are giving it a go.

I wanted to record our efforts in case others were interested in trying this method out.

The First Three Nights

At any time before 11 p.m. (including 10:58) nurse to sleep, cuddle and nurse when he wakes up and nurse him back to sleep, but stop offering nursing to sleep as the solution to waking after 11 p.m.. Instead…..

When your baby awakens at midnight or any other time after 11 p.m., hug him, nurse him for a short time but make sure he does not fall asleep on the breast and put him down awake. Rub and pat and cuddle a little until he falls asleep but don’t put him back on the breast (or give him a bottle if that’s what you’ve been doing). He must fall asleep with your comfort beside him, but not having to nurse to feel comforted enough to drift off.

Night One

Yay!

I decided our 7 hours were to be 11-6, giving me 7 hours of sleep (hopefully). This first night, Sebastian did great. He went to sleep at the breast at exactly 11 pm. He slept until 2 am or so. I briefly nursed him and pulled him off before he was asleep, and then he slept through the rest of the night.

Night Two

Pure hell!

Sebastian was out by 11pm and was asleep for four hours. I'm thinking, awesome, this is going to work. I nurse him briefly again but he gets pissed when I pull off. He had full out tantrums with crying and kicking for two hours off and on. Alex and I rocked him, sang to him, held him...he refused all of it, hitting us and flailing around. I kept telling him "Baby night night, mama night night, dada night night, na nas night night" (Na na is what he seems to say for nursing) and he would flip out at the "na nas night night" part. So he understood what was going on but didn't like it. Finally he passed out at 5:30 am. Surprisingly enough, he woke up happy and smiley. I made a big deal about how na nas were now awake and he could eat as much as he wanted. That made him smile.

Night Three

Success!

I was so afraid we'd have a repeat of night two. Luckily, we did not. He was down by our cut off of 11pm. Before he was asleep I told him that na nas would be going to sleep as well and he didn't react. He slept until 5 am! At that time I nursed him for a minute and pulled off. He protested for a second, then rolled over and went to sleep.

Tonight it gets tougher with me not offering to nurse at any waking before 6am. I'm sort of scared.

Home from the Hospital

First off, wow have I neglected you, blog. I had so much to write about but no time and no internet connection. Maybe I'll catch up someday, maybe.

Tomorrow it'll be a week since Sebastian's Orchipexy. That is the medical term for surgery on an undescended testicle. His left was still up in his groin and needed to be pulled down. The whole situation freaked me out since my ex-husband had a testicle removed and was diagnosed with testicle cancer shortly after we started dating. Having to go through numerous surgeries and cancer treatments with someone like that can certainly add to your fears, especially when you remember a specialist at Stanford say an undescended testicle was a cancer culprit. Needless to say I wanted that sucker taken care of pronto.

Luckily, Dr. Morris, Sebastian's urologist agreed to operate on Sebastian at 14 months rather then wait until 18 months like he usually does. So we were scheduled for surgery a couple weeks after returning from California.

We had to wait forever to go into the OR but luckily they had a waiting room for children with tons of toys. Sebastian loved that. He kept playing with the play kitchen and BBQ as well as scooting the trucks around. I think all those toys took his mind off of food and nursing.







He went in around 45 minutes after his scheduled time which sucked considering he hadn't eaten since 3 am and here it was after 10.

I asked to go in when they put him under and they allowed me to, although it was pretty traumatic to watch. I told Alex later (as horrible as this sounds) that it was like putting an animal to sleep. Poor baby was fighting the gas mask and crying his eyes out. Terrible to see but I just knew I wanted to be there for him while they did it. The anesthesiologist was so sweet though, gently stroking his forehead and talking to him as she was holding the mask on. I really appreciated that. I made sure I didn't cry until I left the OR.

They gave Sebastian a caudal block for pain as well as freezing his incision sites. The surgery lasted an hour and went really well. The surgeon said the hernia was small and that his undescended testicle went into its place easily.

When they allowed me to see him in recovery he was crying hysterically. Poor baby. I'm sure he felt like crap and had no idea what was going on. As soon as I held him he passed out snoring. He only slept about an hour and then was up and raring to go. I was told by the anesthesiologist that he might not be able to stand/walk for the rest of the day due to his caudal block, but he was up and walking within an hour and a half, and was busy playing with toys in the hospital crib. That was his first time in a crib so I think he was a little confused about it.



Once we got home we napped and he was completely back to normal. We tried to give him his pain meds but he wanted nothing to do with them and didn't seem to even need them. The next morning he was practically running around (he's learning to run) and super happy. His steri strip and stitches should dissolve in a few days and we go back to the urologist in 5 weeks.

An added plus, this surgery only cost us $5.74, the price of his prescription pain meds. Thank you socialized medicine.