The Boy Who Wouldn't Sleep: Part I

Joe and I have always loved sleep. B.B. (before babies) we would sleep till noon easily.  So, naturally, I thought I would give birth to a like-minded little individual.  I. was. so. wrong. My child hates sleep. Well not really, my child hates to sleep alone.

A rare shot of him sleeping alone. 

When he was just a wee little nugget, he slept pretty good for a breastfed baby. Up every two to three hours to eat, not too uncommon. Then he hit a growth spurt around 3 months and just when I started getting 3-4 hours straight of sleep, he went back to nursing every 2 hours. Ugh.  Well, I was exhausted at that point because as I have mentioned above, my dear husband likes, no NEEDS, his sleep so I was pretty much doing this middle of the night crap solo.  One night whilst nursing my hungry little dude...I fell asleep.  I had propped myself up to about a 45 degree angle and he had managed to slide off my chest and more to my side, still cradled in my arms.  I woke up to him searching for more food.  And thus began our co-sleeping.

Where it all started....

He slept and nursed in our bed till he was about 7 months then we tried transitioning him to his crib but he was still waking up every 2-3 hours to eat (read: I get up with him) sooo I would just end up bringing him in bed with me because I was so tired. But at 11 months old when he STILL was waking up 2-3x a night and I was STILL getting little to no sleep, I demanded to Joe that we do Cry-It-Out (CIO). Well, Joe has an issue with crying. He can't handle it.  So that was hard dealing with two very frustrated boys, but after a week M seemed to get it and started sleeping from about 8pm to 4am in his crib.  At 4...guess where he went? You betcha! My bed. I'm lazy...feel free to judge.

I got to admit...I love it. 

From about 12 to 18 months he slowly started sleeping later.  The best was the weeks where 4-5 out of the 7 nights he would actually sleep from 8-8:30pm to 6:30-7:30am.  *sigh*....those were few and far between.  He'd wake up in the middle of the night because he was sick, in pain (from an injured hand), teething, freakin' squirrels in the attic chasing their nuts <----I so wish I was kidding about that. Or maybe that night the planets weren't aligned in the correct configuration, I don't know. The point is, he would wake up and no matter how much I rocked him or how inviting I made his crib, he hated it in there and wanted to be with us and doing CIO that late was not an option for my husband.

I get it, I totally 'ruined' him. He wants to be cuddled and loved all the time.  He's a snuggler just like both his parents so I can't really blame the boy. He will only fall asleep in the car or with someone laying down with him.  That's just how it is.  One night, after a week of M waking up multiple times every night for a week Joe suggested that we just transition him to a toddler bed because around the time he was 12 months old we gave up on the crib for naps and would just lay with him on a blanket on the floor in his room.  I was very, very reluctant. I wasn't ready to give up 'baby jail' yet. Welllll, one night I was putting M to sleep and it was taking forever, over an hour of crying and screaming; M was pissed too. In a fit of parental frustration, I pulled his mattress out of his crib, plopped it on the floor, surrounded it with blankets and pillows and he was out in less than two minutes. Crap. He's a big boy now.

This is where we are now. 

Stay tuned for Part II of The Chronicles of the Boy Who Wouldn't Sleep...