Jet has never been a good sleeper. Until recently he was waking every 2 or so hours & most nights he would just end up in bed with us because i was sick of constantly getting up! I wouldn't have minded that so much except that once he started crawling at around 10 months, he would just roll over in the middle of the night, pull his hands & knees up under him & crawl around the bed banging his head into everything including us & none of us got any sleep! Once he reached that stage we decided it was time he went back into his cot. But Jet of course has other ideas!
He is still breastfed which kind of aided the sleep problem a bit, because he just wanted to feed constantly through the night, which can be quite draining! Also we currently live in a one bedroom apartment so we cant put him in another room & i do know that's part of the problem to because he always sleeps better if I'm not in the room.
Anyway after 15 months of sleep deprivation, hardly ever having more than 3 hours sleep in a row & not once in that 15 months getting an 8 hour sleep i finally cracked it after one night around two weeks ago. That night Jet fed 2 hours straight, wouldn't settle in bed with us, kept tossing & turning & crawling all over, wouldn't sleep in his cot, he'd just wake up & scream a blood curdling, attention seeking scream. Not because there was anything wrong but because he just wanted to feed & i didn't want him to. He wasn't happy with just cuddles, he wanted booby & he wanted it NOW! Id had enough! honestly, i tried the whole attachment parenting, co-sleeping thing, but Jet just doesn't seem to be a very 'attached' kinda baby. Neither of us wanted to go down the whole controlled crying path either though.
So, the next night while Rocky was working in Sydney i slept in the lounge room on the couch. Expecting many many wakings & very disgruntled screaming. But...he only woke up twice & even more incredibly all i had to do was go in there & explain to him that there was no more booby at night & that it was time he went to sleep. I had to go back in & give him another cuddle or two but he did go to sleep on his own. The second time he woke I only needed to give him one cuddle. This pattern continued for a couple of nights, when rocky came back he slept in the room with Jet which didn't seem to affect him either way. Then mysteriously after about a week, he must have realised that if there was no booby he couldn't be bothered getting up & he just started sleeping through. We have had a couple of good nights since then & a couple of not so good ones, but I'm back sleeping in the room & jet is (more often than not) sleeping from around 7.30-8ish to 6-7ish in the morning!!!!!!! OH JOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We now give him a sippy cup with water in it in his cot which i think has helped allot, i hear him grab it & suck on it in his sleep & its always pretty much empty by morning. I'm hoping this change will last, he knows he can still have cuddles through the night but I'm refusing to breastfeed him because I'm to scared we will slip back into our old pattern. Besides, when he wakes up in the morning he comes into bed with us & feeds for about an hour straight...so I'm sure hes not missing out on too much nutrition wise!!! So here's to a restful nights sleep :D
