My 5:30am woes ended Monday (two Mondays ago now; it took me a while to complete this post), when I did nothing differently than I had been doing, but he decided to take pity on me and sleep till 7:32am :D VICTORY! Yeah, I just said I didn't do anything differently, but I SURVIVED (and didn't kill him, either), so I'm taking the win on this one. Of course, as is the way with my child, I will now be punished for my gloating with another early morning in the immediate future...but maybe not :)
By this point (two years in to mommihood), I have come to realize that babies often make liars out of you, and to expect the unexpected, but most importantly, to remember that everything is a phase, and early wakings, too, shall pass - it just doesn't feel that way at the time :s Somehow, I have prevailed! In my last post, I mentioned my heavy reliance on friends, family, and my Blackberry. But I had a few other resources, too...
One of my found-friends, Lindsay (a relative of a friend of mine who must have voiced her sleep-related desperation a time or two, enabling my friend to see a potential match and put us in contact with one another!), led me to two different forms of help.
The first was a sleep doula - YES! There are people who specialize in infant sleep!!! They will come to your home and stay overnight and either help you take care of your baby, instilling confidence in your own abilities, suggesting ways to help your baby sleep, and just sharing the burden...or they will do it FOR YOU, allowing you to take a break and get some rest (after taking an Ativan (if you're not breastfeeding - or drinking a few glasses (bottles!) of wine and pumping and dumping if you are!) and putting in earplugs, of course). I was SO jealous. I looked up Halton Doulas who had helped Lindsay so much, but sadly for me, such services came with a hefty pricetag (like, thousands), and my husband vetoed that possibility. I found another doula service that offered a compromise: Precious Moments Doulas offered sleep support, but by email or phone, with one in-home visit to start. This doula was still a big expense, but hundreds instead of thousands. But...my husband vetoed that idea, too. In retrospect, I think the support I might have gotten would have been well worth the price - and perhaps helped OUR relationship, too, but anyway...
When I called Precious Moments, the woman there gave me a list of references, and one couple that I called was unexpectedly helpful. That mommi understood exactly what I was dealing with and had had a similar experience with her daughter, however she also understood my reluctance (actually, my husband's outright refusal) with regard to the price of hiring a sleep doula, even a phone/email one. She told me about a website that offered free information and worksheets to develop a sleep plan for your child, and gave lots of tips that were similar to what she was taught with Precious Moments. That site is ultimately what I used: The Baby Sleep Site was a jackpot!
Nicole Johnson is the brains behind The Baby Sleep Site, and offers lots of free information, as well as paid consultations. I paid. Check the site for updated prices, but I think it was $80 for 10 "tickets". A ticket is a new problem, and there might be one or ten or twenty emails exchanged in solving that problem, but it still counts as one ticket. It wasn't rocket science, and the advice Nicole gave me was similar or the same as that I got from friends Kara and Lindsay, and from two books I will mention in a minute...but it was nice to hear it from an "expert" (Nicole is modest enough to explain that she has no formal training on baby sleep - she learned by trial and error, books, etcetera, in the process of trying to work with her own sleep-challenged child, but now has lots of experience helping others), one I could whine/complain/cry to via email at any given time, knowing that this woman was PAID to listen to me do so! My friends were great for that same purpose, but I was aware of how boring it must have been for them, how I was just repeating myself, same thing day after day... :s Anyhow, Nicole replies within 48 hours to a new problem, and faster once she has engaged in helping you solve it. Her replies are compassionate and understanding, and written in user-friendly language. More than worth my $80! Oh - and I should mention that she offers multiple options for you to try, so if you're not okay with "Cry It Out", she understands, and offers alternatives.
As I mentioned, there were two books that were also life savers. The first is The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep from Birth to Age 5, recommended by Lindsay. Great book, well laid-out, easy to understand. Gives comprehensive information and game plans to help get your child sleeping better. The authors also have a website that has sleep planners and worksheets you can download for free. Check it out here. I highly recommend this book, and the methods it explains. Lindsay said it had worked for four friends of hers, her own son, and then mine.
My Sleep Guru friend, Kara, had used another book that I now refer to as The Sleep Bible. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child is much like The Sleepeasy Solution, but much loooonger. [sigh: a big chunk of text went missing from here and now I have to piece it back together, and it won't be as good...] The length might be off-putting for some, but for an obsessed Sleep-Nazi like me, it was like crack. Or whatever highly-addictive upper Nazis like. Finally, here was someone TELLING me what to do (remember: sleep deprivation had rendered my decision making abilities obsolete), why it was right, and why I would not permanently damage my child from following them. A note on "right": Weissbluth's methods were right for me, and highly recommend them - but I am open-minded enough to realize that they're not for everyone, and believe that you should find what works for your family and do that, regardless of what outsiders say. Take my recommendations for what they're worth. But did I mention Cindy Crawford wrote the forward for the book? Maybe she has more sway than lowly old me ;)
I'd love it if followers would share their own baby-sleep struggles and successes here, perhaps engaging in a friendly debate of different sleep beliefs and practices...? But if you DO comment, please keep it friendly. You will notice that your comments do not appear immediately anymore, because I have had to add the "comment moderation" option, due to a rather mean comment on my 5:30am post :s I was quite surprised and hurt by the comment, because to date, all of the feedback I've received has been positive and encouraging. However, I realize that by sharing a lot of personal information and thoughts in a public forum such as this blog, I open myself up to scrutiny and negative feedback, too, and that's okay. I didn't delete the negative post, because I do want followers to be able to share truthfully, even when that means disagreeing with me. Everything I'm sharing is only my personal experience, and I welcome constructive criticism and alternate suggestions! But please do so in a beneficial and community-building spirit. This blog is meant for good, not evil ;) So, please comment freely, and I will approve everything that isn't mean-spirited. I want to promote the exchange of ideas, but not the ridicule of any one person. THANKS!
To end on a positive note, I'M HAVING A CONTEST! I have my four copies of Go the F**k to Sleep now, and intend to give three to friends - and blog followers count as friends (yeah, that sounds SO lame)! So please find the post that shares the book's title (yes, shameless attempt to get you to search through past posts) and share your own sleep-related struggle in a comment - best (worst!) story wins a copy of Go the F**k to Sleep! :)
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