One step forward...

..two steps back...and on it goes. I am of course talking about Isaac's sleep. Oh, how it has become a thorn in my side. While we were away in Houston he slept terribly for the first couple of weeks and just as things were improving slightly, we left Houston and headed to British Colombia. There we spent 8 nights, all of which were utterly horrible. Sheer torture. Most nights we were lucky if we got an hour straight of sleep at a time. Poor Isaac, poor us and poor Maddie (she was also sleeping in the same room with all of us, although interestingly she seemed to sleep through most of the chaos). It was sad to say goodbye to our family, but I just couldn't wait to get home so we could start kicking some bad sleep habits' butt!!! Well, the first few nights after we got back were pure bliss. He slept for hours at a time! One 5 hour stretch was all I needed to feel refreshed and rested in the morning. I even felt like I had overslept! I had totally forgotten what that felt like. But it only lasted a few nights. Now we are back to his usual antics of waking up at least once (usually 2, sometimes 3 times) before 11pm and then only sleeping about 3 hours at a time until around 7am. And if there are no wake ups before 11pm, he still wakes up often after that. So no matter what happens, I get very little me time, very little sleep or a combo of both...



For now we are doing the "beside the crib" comforting thing because I want him to learn he is able to put himself to sleep without being rocked, held, nursed, etc. but I do not believe in full blown "crying it out". Since he was born we have always tried to lay him down awake, but sleepy, and for the most part he's tolerated it well and was able to fall asleep on his own without any trouble. But then he got sick and was sick for months and months, then he started teething, and he still has awful gas. So our progress would go out the window and we'd be back to square one. We are working with our Naturopath to get him as healthy as possible (and he is already doing so much better than even a month ago!), so things are improving, but slowly. Anyways, I guess as the saying says, anything that's worth doing always takes some work, right? Well, I'll have to order myself a crate of chocolate to get through this next round of baby sleep education 101...