Well night 2 transitioning to the big boy bed was a bit better. He still cried immediately after we left the room. I put him back in bed about 5 times and then just laid down with him again till he feel asleep. I'm torn as to what to do because I know if I don't do that he will cry, like a lot. But its not a permanent solution. I can't do it every night and the more I do it the more he will expect it. Ugh! Parenting is hard, man.
But on the bright side, he did stay in his bed and asleep till 6am. So that's improvement at least!
Night 3 was rough. I talked to some parents during the day just to get more info on how they handled it. I also did a bunch of Internet research. Basically all sources all agreed that you have to let them cry for a few nights but they eventually will get it. This reminds me of the sleep training we did around 10 months. It was SO hard to hear him cry but in the end it was the best thing for our family. So I talked to Steve about whether this was the best decision for our family this time. We agreed that the timing really wasn't great with us leaving for a trip next week and that will probably mess up his sleep anyway. We discussed doing a series of transitions like we did with the sleep training, such as sitting next to his bed for a week, sitting by the door for a week, right outside the door, etc.
So anyway, we decided not to start that until we get back from vacation. But we did talk about letting him cry a little bit to see how he handled it (the previous nights we had gone in right away after he whimpered a bit). So that night we did the same routine and as soon as we left he went right to the baby gate and started whimpering for me. I went in after about 5 minutes and put him back into his bed and left. Well, later/rise/repeat for about an hour of that. Finally I let him go more like 10 minute intervals and he started screaming instead of crying/whimpering. Yikes! That was not fun but at that point it was like well we've come this far, if I go in now do I undo all the progress we've made? WELL cranky/tired mommy won over logic and I went into lay down with him around 10:30pm. Well that little stinker wouldn't go to sleep! He stared at me for about 45 minutes. I pretended to sleep all that, and every time I'd sneak a peek at him he'd just be staring at me. SO frustrating and I was SO tired! UGH
He finally feel aslep at some point and I went back to my bed. Well then he woke up at 3am. Awesome...not! I had to go back in there and lay with him until 4:30 again. SO needless to say I was super tired and cranky the next day.
So we needed a new plan!
No comments:
Post a Comment