Sleeping Training FAIL

If you can read the time on the clock, you will see that Benj is WIDE awake at 11pm. These past few weeks have been very very difficult. For awhile, he was going to bed at 8:30 pretty faithfully and without fight. Then the past week or so, he'd wake up 30 minutes later and scream, it'd take 30 minutes to put him back to sleep and then he'd wake every 2 hours and demand to nurse. Then at 4am he would open his eyes, be awake and cry at us for an hour. He used to only nurse every 3-4 hrs - so patterns change and we don't know why.

I will spare you the details, but I was scouring sleep technique books over the weekend and kept getting frustrated at all the stories where moms left their babies to cry for 45mins and they themselves wept in the living room. Then their baby slept all night without a peep and continues to sleep 8-10hrs a night the following nights. I can't do it! He already cries when we hold him and it is truly heartwrenching. What I did learn is that all that crying he is doing it because he is tired and we aren't catching his natural sleepy time and putting him to bed then. I can do that in the future.

So, come Sunday night, Dillon and I are weary and frustrated and on the edge. I go to church and get a little reassurance from some other moms. Using knowledge from those moms and a suggestion to swaddle him (which worked really well when he was up to 3 months) we put him in his own room so he would smell mommy and swaddled him. He slept 4 hrs, nursed 2 times and feel back asleep immediately both times. PHEW! Praise God :)

The second picture is Benj riding around in the basket as I switch out his 3-6 month clothes for 6-9 outfits! The little guy just turned 5 months on Friday and he is wearing big boy clothes now.