Our baby started to beat the sh*t out of us in our own bed and we knew it was time for a change.
Or maybe it was when he would just stand up in his crib crying unconsolably. And then fall asleep standing up head on crib rail, then wake back up again to cry.
We were officially the parents who had trained our kid not to be able to sleep, sending him into physically and mentally abusive rages. Whoops.
We knew we had a problem when he was in bed head-butting and b*tchslapping us, and then falling face first asleep.
When putting him to bed, we’d spend hours waiting for him to fall asleep on us after feeding him a bottle and singing to him…intuiting his different sleep stages until he was passed out and we could ATTEMPT a transfer of a sleeping baby to the crib.
And then we’d set him down OH SO GENTLY, and he would wake up like a four alarm fire alarm….
NOOOOO another 45 minutes to do that all over again…especially in the middle of that night…NOT COOL BABY.
And before, earlier on, we were good man!
At 4 months, the doctor was like, get him started now. It’ll take 3 days to train him…
And it magically did.
But… Then… Slowly… Over… Time… Bed time became this hellish routine of doing whatever the baby wanted, but putting him in his crib.
I don’t know how it happened, maybe it was when he had a teething fever, or that time we brought him into bed and he snuggled with us magically like an ideal snuggle koala bear.
So we did what any good parents do, consult family, consult friends, and then do what a random internet article recommends. In this case, it was the put the baby down game. My sister did recommend this sleep consultant, Nancy Bierkenmeier...but that seemed like waiting, work and money that I wasn’t ready to invest in…yet.
My friend Di Ana Pissari, an amazing parent and child coach, provided me some great coaching too. She shared, put him lying down in the crib, comfort him, tell him it’s all ok, and then lie down on the floor at first, until he can go to sleep on his own. That coaching aligned with the internet article – approach confirmed!
Essentially it was my job to put the baby in the crib awake, and show him how to lie down, by putting him down. Repeatedly.
Like 30…40… times…and a couple times over 100 times…..
And you know what? It worked.
Now he can go to bed on his own with out the bottle or falling asleep being rocked…
YESSSSSSSS!!!!!! GOOALLLLL!!!!!
Now to figure out how to get out of the room while he’s still down in his crib but awake…stay tuned.