Tonight, when my husband and I went into our nightly routine of trying to get the baby to bed by 9 (ha), Gabriel was having none of it. We don't do cry-it-out because we simply cannot handle it, but because Gabe is just about eight months old and he is starting to understand the concept of bedtime, we are starting to put him down and letting him fuss (not full out cry) 2-4 minutes before heading into his bedroom to console him. Up until last night, he never fell asleep in his crib on his own.
So this evening, when I went into calm my little one, he was on all fours, grabbing the sides of his crib and readying himself to pull up when I started to sing the only song in the rolodex that easily calms him at any time...
"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star..."
And after round twenty-two of the song, lowering my voice every round as I rubbed his back, eventually hitting a round of whispering the song, Gabriel fell asleep.
How sweet it is for your little boy to fall asleep soothed by your singing. I've been writing about Goober falling asleep lately, and maybe that's because my husband and I are starting to really miss our sleep. He is not sleeping through the night, waking between 11-1 to nurse, then sometimes again at 3, and finally between 5-7 to nurse or to get up for the day. We're tired. But those little sing-song moments make it sweet.
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P.S. It seems Gabe had roseola. He broke out in a full rash today after his 3.5 days of fever. Poor little dude. It was all over him. And he got a bad diaper rash from his diarrhea (TMI)-- he's in a disposable (gasp!) tonight so that I could slather him in rash cream and surgilube.
I wish (my) Gabriel would fall asleep when I sing to him! He only does that with daddy. And I just wanted to let you know, I was against the "cry it out" method, too. But what you're doing when you let him fuss and check on him, is also letting him "cry it out". There are a lot of misconceptions about it :)
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't get to a cry, and if he does start to cry, we go right into him. We don't just check on him-- we spend lots of time with him, and we calm him. Last night, he was sung to sleep. What we do is heavily based on Gabe's cues (he nurses whenever he shows he needs it, and usually he nurses to sleep), and crying it out/ sleep training is not. So we definitely are much more Dr. Sears than Ferber, and I would be careful saying what we do is crying it out when the baby isn't even crying. It is about teaching our now very cognitvely-aware baby that nighttime coincides with bedtime in the gentlest way we can.
ReplyDeletehey, wanted to tell u, i am leaving for a long vacation (like 2 months). I am not sure if i am gonna update my blog. U know how vacations are. But will def visit u once in a while. But i will def try to post something. Till then take care & keep blogging.
ReplyDeleteTwo months- how nice! Have a great vacation!
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