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i'm furberizing my baby

ok, let's get this straight right off the bat: i don't know if i am literally following dr. furber's methods of sleep training. there are so many versions out there. but saying we're furberizing john is WAY more fun than saying that i'm letting him cry his little lungs out in an attempt to teach him to sleep on his own.

it's night two of our efforts. he went right to sleep last night, which was great. and he slept for 5.25 hours (!!!!) before waking up at 2:30 a.m. when he woke up crying, i let him cry for 5 minutes before going in to soothe him. (the soothing barely works at all, by the way, but it's what i'm supposed to do ...) then i let him cry for 10 more minutes before going in to soothe him again. next on the agenda was a 15 minute stretch of crying - but he fell asleep after 8 minutes. so a sum total of 22 minutes of crying. not too bad for night two. i've heard night three can be the worst ... so we'll hold on to our hats tonight.

meantime, this is the face i woke up to this morning:

do i have to get up?
on the plus side, after a little playing and a cool pair of grey pants, here's that same child 2 minutes later:

marky mark, eat your heart
out. i AM the funky bunch.
one of the very hardest things i've ever done is sit in the room adjacent to my crying son, listening to him scream bloody murder, watching the clock until i can go in to "soothe" him. another of the hardest things is seeing him so worked up that the "soothing" has little to no effect on him as he continues to wail.

but if the end result is that cute baby rapper in the second picture ... well i guess i can't complain. :)
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Comments

Anonymous said…
You are a stronger mommy than me, I've never been able to do this. In fact, I'm still nursing Josiah because he doen't know how to put himself to sleep or fall asleep any other way.
January 25, 2011 at 9:18 AM
Anonymous said…
I have faith John will learn quickly since he has a history if sleeping well. Good luck! Teaching our child to sleep on his own was the most difficult thing I have ever done - feels like your heart is melting. If, for any reason, he does not progress with this training, I highly recommend "Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child" and weissbluthmethod.wordpress.com. After 7 months if severe sleep deprivation, we instituted his methods; 3 months of consistent routines later, our son now generally sleeps 10-11 hours at night uninterrupted and naps twice per day for a total of 3 hours. He still sometimes cries for up to 40 minutes but we started with over 2 hours every night. Sorry to go off but I know how difficult life is when you don't get enough sleep! Good luck:). - Jamie H
January 25, 2011 at 11:24 AM
Anonymous said…
Helloooooooo
January 25, 2011 at 1:05 PM
Val said…
Anonymous worked. How bout this?
January 25, 2011 at 1:06 PM
Val said…
Woohoo! Finally! Good tweaking, Jess!
January 25, 2011 at 1:07 PM
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