I'm a believer!

So our night time routine started at 6pm last night. Bath, stories, nursing and then asleep by 7:20... or so we thought. It started with whimpering (so pathetically sad ;~) and escalated into full out screaming. I kid you now when I say you could hear the anger at us in his cries. According to Doc Weissbluth, once we put him down for the night, that was it. He cries until he falls asleep. Uhhh, torture much? However, since we (hubby and I) had a plan this time it was easier to stick to it and wait out the screaming. It took 1 hour and 40 minutes but eventually he calmed down and fell asleep. Now I didn't enjoy listening to that sound for as long as I did but I DID enjoy the silence once he was done.

As we were laying down we were preparing for what we would do if and what time Chase woke up during the night... before 3 - don't even go in, let him fall back asleep on his own. after 3 - diaper change and nurse back to sleep. The next thing I know, it's 5 and I am awake for no other reason then I am hard wired right now to be up then... Chase however, is still sound asleep. I am almost so giddy I wake Adam up... I said almost, I am not stupid enough to wake him up before I have to! I fall back asleep and wake up again at 6. Again, I am not waking up because of Chase, just because I have been getting up at that time for the past few weeks! I quietly read for the next 45 minutes all the while being completely amazed that Chase is still asleep. At 6:45 he did wake up crying which isn't the goal but for the first night, pretty darn amazing.

So I think there are a few key factors here...

1. I thought all things baby would come naturally to me. Not so much. I know that only Adam and I know how to raise Chase but there are some good opinions out there that should be listened to as well! I am starting to realize I am not the baby guru I thought I was! I am learning that I do need to read up on these type of things so I know all the options. My next goal is to read up on feeding babies!

2. Just because I don't like the process doesn't mean it isn't necessary. We tried other methods to get Chase to sleep well... including begging and pleading... all of which availed us nothing. It hurt to listen to him and I almost caved because of my frustration, saddness and headache but Adam helped me stay strong and we made it. Not only did we get a great pay off that very night, we just laid him down for his morning nap and he cried/whimpered for no more than 8 minutes before complete quiet. Talk about immediate gratification.

3. Adam and I are on the same page. This could perhaps be the absolute most important key of all. Before we were both filled with uncertainty about how we were handling things and with that uncertainty came our own ideas about how to handle specific situations. Complete lack of communication really. This time I read the book and picked out the key parts that related to our current situation... I highlighted them for Adam and he read up on it (he pretended it was a really long internet article!). Now we both have a game plan... the same game plan. This in turn makes it easier for me to let Adam be a daddy and put him down for naps..

4. For so long we were concerned about Chase's reflux and gas that we just assumed that they just persisted past the usual timing... what had actually happened was Chase's issues morphed into sleeping problems and we just didn't recognize the change. For all this time we have been trying to treat a problem that didn't exist while missing the problem that was there. YAY for parental mistakes! It's not the first and I am positive it won't be the last.

Now for the saddest image ever... poor thing is SO sleepy!

We really are still in the training part of this process so I don't want to think that we have licked this problem yet but we are definitely on the right path! Thanks to Kare Kare for her Dateline watching!