Maybe this will be my last post on sleep..... :) but probably not!

So, I blog a lot about sleep. I posted about how great Kayden was at sleeping when we first brought him home, and I've posted about the struggles we now have with getting him to fall asleep on his own and in his crib. I've struggled A LOT with the cry it out method. It breaks my heart to listen to him cry for over an hour. I have been scared that he thinks that his mommy doesn't love him because he is just laying in this room all by himself screaming and no one is coming to get him. I would do it a night or two, and then give up.

I told myself that when he was rolling over, we would see if that would help since he seems to like to sleep on his stomach. Well, as I have blogged, rolling over is not going over well with us and at this rate, I'm not sure if he will roll over consistently and to where I am comfortable leaving him on his belly for a very long time. I then was all like "well when he is 8 months old we will do the sleep training again" What was so magical about 8 months, I don't know. For some reason I felt like at 8 months he would understand more of what I was saying to him and that way I could tell him I loved him, but he needs to learn how to sleep on his own. I mean... really... what 8 month old really understands that?!

Last night, however, I had a breaking point. Kayden was SCREAMING bloody murder. We couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. I think some of it was the fact that he was over tired because he never really took a nap after 4 and he usually has around an hour nap at 6. While I was rocking him, for some reason, I just lost it. I felt like a horrible mother because my child couldn't fall asleep on his own, he couldn't roll over, he was over tired, and there were many other things that were going through my mind at that point but I can't even remember them because they were THAT stupid. But anyways. Last night I decided that we really needed to try this whole sleep training again. It was all or nothing this time. He has GOT to learn how to sleep on his own. He will NOT remember laying in his crib screaming until he falls asleep. This WILL set him up for success in the future. I never expressed this to Nick though, because I was scared he would hold me accountable for it and I would actually have to go through with it if I told him. There have been many nights where I would say, tomorrow night, we are doing sleep training again... and that night would roll around and I wouldn't do it.

Tonight however, I looked around the house at the stack of coupons that needed to be cut out, the dishes that needed to be cleaned and put away, the laundry piled up high, the baby food that needed to be made (which is yet ANOTHER blog post... but i'll save that one for another day), the floors that needed to be swept, and on and on the list grew. I can't ever get anything done because when Kayden is awake I want to be playing with him and when he is asleep I have to be holding him. So I decided I was going to do it. Nick wasn't even home at the time that I decided I was going to do it. I had given Kayden a bottle at 6:30 and at 7:30 he was starting to get tired so I gave him a bath, lotioned him up, read him a book, cuddled with him for just a little bit, and then laid him down in the big scary crib! And of course he screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and continued to scream. I just kept myself busy with clipping coupons and thinking about how I needed to get this stuff done. I told myself that if I finished everything that I needed to get done, and he was still crying, I would go get him (which... there was NO WAY i could finish my list.. but it made me feel better :) ). Finally, after an hour and a half the screaming started to subside and then he went to sleep. Of course, it had then been 3 hours since the last time he ate so he only stayed asleep for 30 minutes. I was all ready for this to be a complete failure. I was going to wait for him to wake up and then feed him and try to lay him back down but the second time around has always been a lot tougher on me and that is usually when he ends up back in our bed. Luckily, we had started so early that this bottle was at 10 when I was still up so I fixed him a bottle and fed him. Then went and laid him back down. He of course started screaming but this time around, it lasted 5 minutes. 5 MINUTES!!!! trust me, I was shocked. I then was all like yeah, he's going to just wake up 30 minutes later and won't go back to sleep. Well it's been an hour since he has gone down and he is still asleep. I'm sure he will wake up several times tonight, but I'm hoping that I can stick to my guns throughout the night. I'm going to just try and feed him and put him back down in his crib. He usually sleeps from 11-8 straight through the night, but that's usually with me waking up several times throughout the night and putting his paci back in when he starts to stir. Obviously in my bed it wasn't that big of a deal, but when he is in his crib it's going to be a bigger deal :)

In the past when I have let him cry it out, we have always let him cry for about 15 minutes and then would go in there and give him his paci again and then leave. While i feel like this was reassuring to him (or more myself) it PISSED HIM OFF. So tonight, I decided that I was not going to go back in there at all to put his paci back in. Hopefully, with him learning how to fall asleep without his paci, it will help in the middle of the night. We will see. To be honest, i'm just glad that we have made it this far tonight. I feel like every little step helps.