How to Get Him to Sleep Through the Night

Oh my.  It only took me about 10 months to do it, but Weston's been regularly sleeping through the night for well over a month now.  I've read books, other's blogs, and all sort of things to figure out how to get him to stop waking up between 11pm and 2am to nurse.  Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child is a great book (but very poorly written--the guy needs an editor) to understand the physiological part of sleeping.  It mentions that after 9 months, babies don't need to eat during the night.  My problem?  He was eating every time I offered, so I figured he was hungry.  And he's not a fat baby by any means, so the mother in me kept going in to feed him because on some level I was afraid he would waste away.

Here's how the habit forms...He nurses when I offer, so then he wakes up the next night because he knows that last night he got to eat when he woke up.  And Mom won't refuse.

Weston: 1.  Mom: 0

But, then I started to get the feeling that he wasn't really that hungry.  He would nurse just a little bit to fall back asleep.  Besides, he had slept through the night before on a handful of occasions.  That's when it sunk in that I had created this habit.

He was expecting me to be there to feed him when he woke up.  There were many times when we tried to let him cry it out, but after 45 minutes of listening to a hysterical baby at 2 am, I couldn't do it.  And then when I saw a broken blood vessel in his eye one morning afterward, I felt horrible.  I know, the cry-it-out method says to let them be, but I really couldn't do it.  We let him cry himself to sleep for nap, but that lasts all of 10 minutes.

The night we moved into our new house, this was my plan: when he cried, I let him do so for 5 minutes.  Then, I went into his room and instead of picking him up to comfort him, I sat down on the floor and put my head next to the mattress and calmly told him, "You can do it.  You can calm down."  He stood at the crib railings, wailing out of frustration, but after about 3 minutes, he actually sat down and put his head on my hand and continued to cry.  I kept talking to him quietly and then he gradually toppled over and laid down, still crying, but not entirely unwilling to give this whole new thing a shot.  Rubbing his back and telling him that I believed he could do it, I stayed in there until he fell asleep.

The next two nights were the same thing.  Then it started to get a little harder.  He wouldn't calm down as quickly and if he laid down, he would get up again and wail at the railings.  I had to keep believing in him and the fact that he could indeed do this (thank you to Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman), and I would tell him that in a calm voice while trying to squeeze my arms through the crib railings as I would pat his back.

I'd say it was about a solid week of going into his room and "talking him down."  He had several nights of uninterrupted sleep, and then one or two more relapses, but since then, he's been sleeping from about 6:30 pm to 6 am!!  He still takes a morning nap and afternoon nap, too.

Now I need to figure out how to get me to sleep through the night...  Old habits die hard.

Saying No

This is Weston's latest thing...shaking his head no.  Thankfully, he doesn't use it to mean "no," so it's still cute.

I can't figure out how to turn the video, so you'll have to crane your neck.  Sorry.




I love how he pauses to rest after several rounds.

Happy Ten Months!

Weight: 21 lbs. 8 oz.
Height: ~31 in.

Weston's enjoying our new house, especially the stairs...  We didn't have stairs at our apartment, so they are quite an attraction. We have a nice little park near by, and we've gone many times since we've moved here.  He loves watching all the kids run around, and he's even made a friend, Ruby, a little girl who's about 5 months older than he.  She can walk and frequently comes over to pet Weston's head.  It's adorable.

The same six teeth that he got when he was 6 months old...nothing new since then

We're pretty sure that his word for "water" sounds something very similar to "daughter daughter."  He only says "mama" when he's crying, but will say "dada" all the time.

 Oh!  Did I tell you that he's been sleeping through the night for about 3 weeks now???!!??  That will be another post all on its own, but I feel like a new woman.

Going after the keys

His latest thing is holding a ball in his hand for most of the day.  He crawls around with it in his fist, making him look like he's got a peg leg.

Puff the Magic Dragon

I recently selected Peter, Paul and Mary on my Pandora music station while I was feeding Weston dinner.  I thought it would give him some good music to digest his dinner.  What he wasn't expecting was for his mom to burst into tears.


Let me back up about twenty years...  My sister and I spent every weekend with my dad when we were growing up after my parents divorced.  My dad was a creature of habit and when he liked something, he tended to always go back to it.  He loved Peter, Paul and Mary and had a double cassette called In Concert that we listened to ALL. THE. TIME. in his car.  I think my sister and I could sing the entire album if given the chance.


Anyway, when the beautiful children's song Puff, the Magic Dragon would come on, my dad would oftentimes tear up.  I never really understood why, until he explained the lyrics to me.  Basically, the story is about Puff and his playmate Jackie Paper, a little boy who eventually grows up and loses interest in the imaginary adventures of childhood.  Eventually, Puff dies without Jackie Paper around to believe in him.




My dad was a sensitive guy...


Back to 2012.  I'm feeding Weston dinner and Pandora chooses to play this song, and I start singing to Weston.  Out of nowhere, I start bawling.  I'm trying to sing along, but my throat is tight and tears are rolling down my face.  I keep thinking about my dad who passed away in October of 2010 when I was 3 months pregnant with Weston, and how unfair it is that he and Weston never met.  I'm actually irate about this--resentful at the whole situation.  And I'm surprised, too, that I'm feeling this way.


I don't think about my dad all day long and continue to mourn his passing.  I do, however, think about him throughout the week at all sorts of different times, and I especially love it when I have dreams about him.  When those happen (and I wish I had more dreams about him), I try so hard to hold on to them because they fade so quickly as the day wears on.  I still am tempted from time to time to hold down the number 5 on my phone and call him to relay the latest  funny thing that Weston did...


I still haven't deleted his name and number from my phone.