Sleep Training: Self Imposed Familial Torture
Being a parent is one of the most joyous things I have ever done in my life. It’s also one of the hardest things I’ve ever encountered. As your baby grows you go through different phases and have to change how you approach things to suit their changing lifestyles. At first they just slept and lay in your arms or bed all day. Then they grow and start to be mobile and you make the necessary changes for that. Pride swells, and fear grows because now they are a potential danger to themselves in this wild world. My wife and I just roll with the punches, we got this.
We thought we had this…
The latest stage of development is our son is getting older and needs to learn the difference between day and night. He needs to become accustomed to sleeping in his own crib in his own room at night. Now I can rattle off the numerous benefits to the child for being able to put themselves to sleep and sleep through the night, but lets be honest that’s not why you’re reading this. You want to read our struggles, because its the relatable parts of parenthood that aren’t talked about. So I present to you the “Sleep Training: S.I.F.T” Method of life.
S.I.F.T.- Self Imposed Familial Torture
I’ve dubbed this part of life Self imposed familial torture because we chose this path willingly. Oh god, how foolish and unprepared we were. This method for us started out as the “Cry it Out” sleep method. You take your innocent cherub and start a bed time routine (mind you we did have one it just ended in our bedroom) and end it with a final feeding in their dark room and placing them in their crib whilst still awake. This is where it gets dicey, now you leave your unsuspecting child in this dark room and wait for hell to spew forth demons through their vocal cords. If you wait until your child is an advanced 7 month old like we did, this means your child gets up and stands against the side of their crib crying out for you into the dark void. You watch all this from your ultra advanced baby monitor all the while holding the loaded gun to your temple because you feel like a complete D**khead for abandoning your gift to the world.
The training method dictates that you wait a full 5 minutes before going in to check on them. Have you every waited five minutes to do something? usually it’s not a big deal, but have you ever waited 5 minutes to help your heartstring that’s actively calling for you? Probably not. It’s hard! It’s so got damn hard! I’m an introverted overly logical robot most of the time, but I was about to explode as tears swelled up in my eyes. After this grueling first five minutes my wife goes to our son and he reached for her and needed to be calmed down. We were only supposed to touch him for a few seconds and put him back down. Doing this lit a new fire in him and he let out cries of rage and abandonment again. What seemed like forever went by but in actuality it was only about another 5–7 minutes and he actually curled up with his favorite blanket and went to sleep.
He went to sleep…
The house had a wave of calm and quiet wash over it. We kept staring at the monitor stream on our phone like we were mission control at NASA. We were expecting something to happen, but he actually just slept for the next two hours. In this period of calm we reflected on just how hard this is and the fact that we don’t know if we could do it. He woke two hours later, we comforted him and again in about 10 minutes he was asleep. This time he slept for another 3 hours. Then he woke again, rinse and repeat until 6am and Mom snatched her baby from the clutches of the dark vile nursery and comforted him.
Aftermath of Night 1
With the first night in the books I noted that our son did have longer stretches of sleep being in a quiet dark environment. That is the point of the training, so he can eventually sleep through the night. That would be all well and good and should have been sufficient enough to make us want to dive headlong into this training method. But, our normally bubbly and cuddly son who simply adores his mother above all else was acting differently. Normally he wants nothing more than to be with his mom and smile at her and laugh and play with her. When I get him from work he happily laughs and crawls towards me. But after this night of basically rejecting his calls for help, he was being antisocial. He retained his natural curiosity and need to play with his toys but he didn’t want anything to do with his mother. So much so that when I finally woke up and he saw me, he pushed away from her and crawled to me. Never in his entire life has he pushed away from her. He’s never rejected her. Even after suctioning his nose, or doing his hair against his will. All the things he doesn’t like he’s never rejected her. But this morning that shot through the heart was fired.
Was this sleep training worth it if it’s going to cost our relationship with our son? No HELL NO it isn’t at all. We knew that we had to tweak this method for our benefit or we will just not do it at all. He eventually snapped back into his normal routine but the pain was engrained in our minds now. So this Self Imposed Familial Torture was tweaked.
Warily entering Night 2
As time crept closer to his bedtime My wife gave him a bath and sat him down for story time and a bottle. All was well so far. He was happy and playful. Then the dread set in as the lights went off and he was left in his crib again. He yelled in protest, and after 5 minutes my wife went in to check on him. This time Damn the barely touch your child method. He reached for his mom, and she hugged him and let him know all is well with the world. I know all the Cry It Out method parents are cursing us right now, but this is OUR son. Raise your progeny how you see fit.
After she put him back down after holding him for about 20 seconds he cried out for a few minutes but he went to sleep fairly quickly. Only about 5 minutes went by. He slept for the next two hours without stirring at all, during a noisy football game no less. Once he woke up we popped in to check on him. My wife again picked him up and calmed him before putting him down. a few minutes went by and I popped in and picked him up. He instantly calmed down with his head on my shoulder. I told him all is well and this is for his benefit. I know a 7 month old doesn’t understand what I’m saying but I believe they can pick up on our calming nature and that calms them as well. I put him back down an he was yelling out again. At this moment I felt like I made it worse, but in all honesty he went to sleep again fairly quickly. He slept for the next 3 hours. He awoke again and got a diaper change and was out again for the next 4 hours. He didn’t wake up again until I woke him at 6am taking a shower for work.
Aftermath of Night 2
After tweaking the Cry It Out Method my wife fed our son the next morning and had a very different result. He was the same loving baby boy that we brought home last June. He also looked well rested. I can say that I slept better last night compared to the first. Our family as a unit was better off this day. To hell with that old Cry It Out Method. The Hemingway house has its own way of doing things why should this be any different. My son was loving and normal this morning, so this formula is the one we will stick with as we teach him the difference between day and night and how to sleep independently. This is an ongoing process so stay tuned for the updates. Its all Self Imposed Familial Torture until it’s successful.
Lord let it be successful
- Poetic Ice
