Skip to main content

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. :)

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.
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
Anonymous said…
Helloooooooo
Val said…
Anonymous worked. How bout this?
Val said…
Woohoo! Finally! Good tweaking, Jess!

Popular posts from this blog

pull up your big boy undies

"what time is it? mommy? what oclock?" john's teacher told me something amazing today. "you should bring me some big boy undies," she said, "i haven't changed john in weeks." it seems that at school, since they check in with him periodically to see if he has to potty, and since his very smart teacher has noticed his (very regular) bowel movement schedule, john is potty trained. at 9am at 2pm, she plops him on the toilet. he might sit for 20 minutes, reading a book. when she checks on him, he says, "i just poo-pooin', miss meka." and when he's done, he's good and done. we're not quite that far along at home, but tonight we go shopping for big boy undies. and i'm sure we'll have a few accidents, but that's just a part of the process ... and soon my little boo will be in big boy undies full time. and ... it's a great time for him to be out of diapers. because good lord willing and the creek

on lullabies

i am not a singer. if you've sat behind me in church, you know this to be true. (and i'm sorry.) a musician, yes. a singer no. and yet i find myself singing to john almost nonstop. and the beauty is, he seems to actually like it! (there's no accounting for taste. he also thinks i'm the most beautiful woman in the world. i'm no ogre, but i'm certainly not winning any beauty contests outside of my son's brain!) and actually, i've written some lullabies for john that are pretty nice. and it made me think: did your parents sing to you? do you remember what they sang, and better yet, if you have kids, do you sing the same songs to them? reply in the comments!