Luke's doctor told us we should encourage independence by putting Luke to bed before he is asleep. He recommended we start when he is over his cold. But that evening when rocking him to sleep, he just squirmed and cried anyway. So I put him in his crib instead of dealing with his squirming. His crying got more intense, of course. I went back in after a couple of minutes, gave him his pacifier, rubbed his back (he now rolls over to sleep on his tummy), and left. I went in every couple minutes repeating that process. After quite awhile, Howie went in wanting to calm him to sleep and picked him up to rock him. I was a mean mom and took him away from daddy and put him back in his bed. We went in every couple minutes for 45 minutes and finally he went to sleep.
The next night I braced myself for the long haul. But it only took me going in twice for him to go to sleep!
The night after that, I put him down, he cried, I went in after 3 minutes, gave him his pacifier, he calmed down. I went to check my email and realized after 20 minutes that he hadn't cried...I couldn't believe it!
Now, that is about the extent of it. He cries when we put him down, but usually it only takes going in after a few minutes to give him his pacifier and he goes to sleep. It really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
Now I've just got to get him to go back to sleep at 4am. He has been waking up that early and won't go back to sleep unless I pick him up. Last night I tried doing the same thing we do at bedtime. But I am just to tired to fight him for 45 minutes, so he ends up in our bed. Gotta work on that.
No comments:
Post a Comment