Last night was another interesting night, rather than nurse Khalid to sleep I tried the ‘crying it out in arms’ approach, which basically involved him screaming his little self tired- in my arms. Someone posted a link to this in the comments of one of the crying it out posts, and I’m not sure who it was, but they should also have posted a link to body building and developing muscle for high-stress baby-rocking. :p Khalid is, MashaAllah, over the 95% percentile for his weight and height, which means me bouncing almost 12 kilos (26 pounds) of angry, screaming, WWF-Wrestling baby in my arms for 20 minutes before he winds down and falls whining to sleep.

Alhamdulillah, he slept, and last night wasn’t too bad, although there were no long sleep stretches over an hour and a half. I think by now I’m so frazzled by the every-forty-minutes schedule that an hour and a half seems good. The other night I put Khalid to sleep and even though I was exhausted, I wandered in to the kitchen and got on to the laptop to do some work. Why not? I thought, he’s just going to wake up in forty minutes, why bother going to sleep?

But going back to the title of this post- Last night, about fifteen minutes into rocking and screaming and wrestling- my arms were burning (you know burning? it’s five minutes past aching and two minutes before dying) and my back was aching and I was getting frustrated and suddenly Khalid stops crying, looks up at me and says, “bap bap bap?” Then he smiles at me and launches into a few minutes of impossibly cute baby-babble, “pibpibpib, bap bap bap, nanagagagaGAK!” He lays relaxed in my arms, just making cute little sounds and smiling at me, and manages to undo all of the anger and frustration that had been piling up onto my shoulders just minutes ago.

SubhanAllah. Standing there in the dark, at 1:30 am, with aching body, aching feet, and 12 kilos of sleep-resistant babyfat in my arms- I laughed out loud. I kissed his soft little cheeks. I remembered that bed time is an ordeal for him too, and he’s not deliberately being difficult, he’s just being what he is- a baby.

We went to the pediatrician last week for his cough, and HF asked the doctor about Khalid’s atrocious sleep habits- waking every forty minutes, not sleeping at night, etc. The doctor patiently listened and then shrugged apologetically. “That’s normal, all children are like this.” We asked her if she was sure. She was. And she had her own kids too.

SubhanAllah, I sometimes forget how much I am blessed. Allah has blessed me with a beautiful, beautiful child, free from disabilities or conditions or any visible defects- ten perfectly chubby, perfectly formed fingers, same number of wiggly little toes, enormous gorgeous eyes, the sweetest, softest cheeks- Khalid is a perfect baby, and it’s my fault for forgetting- he’s a perfect baby. He’s sitting in his high-chair right now, banging a clothes pin against a set of teething keys and periodically chewing on a baby biscuit that he’s also managed to rub into his eyebrows. He’s a baby.

My beautiful little son. 🙂 It was time for his nap about an hour ago now, and he managed to sleep for ten minutes before waking up again with a happy -bapbapbap- He’s starting to rub his eyes and pull his ears (which also have cookie crumbs on them) so I guess it’s time for me to try to put him to sleep again. Please remember us in your duas- I need patience and he needs an off button. :p

Peace & Chikken Grease
Abez & Bebeface

Well, the past three days have been hectic. Picking up where we left off-

Night Before HF gets here- Bebeface cries it out for an hour and forty minutes, only to wake up two hours later and then be up and down all night as usual. That is very discouraging.

Night HF gets home- Bebeface cries for an hour and a half before I go in to rescue him from him own stubborness- it’s midnight, HF and I are both tired and he’s just gotten back from a business trip. I nurse him to sleep, hoping that crying for so long has at least drained his batteries a bit. He sleeps for an hour as usual, and wakes up about six times during the night.

Yesterday Night- I am swamped with two separated freelancing tasks with seriously short deadlines- I put Bebeface down to cry it out for the night, and after an hour of listening to him scream and get not quieter, but louder, I am not able to concentrate at all on my work. I go in to nurse him to sleep. He nurses, and then is up and ready for action until 1:30 am.

Yesterday Night- I do nothing related to crying- I happen to be in the shower when I notice that Bebeface, who HF had been rocking and singing to (I love you HF!) had gone quiet and fallen asleep. And there is much rejoicing. (He wakes up ever hour or so all night. This is usual.)

This evening- Hoping for similar success, I feed, pajama, and soothe Khalid before passing him to HF for a rocking to sleep. Bebeface stubbornly resists. HF passes him back to me after about half an hour, and I nurse Khalid to sleep.

He’s asleep now, my little bundle of impossibility. I must clarify- the bedtime routine of a nice bath and a feed and a kiss and a song- I’ve been doing that for about a week and a half now, and if the purpose of it is to make Khalid rub his eyes with sleep, then it accomplishes its goal. But then, since Khalid wakes up every morning at 9:30 by the latest, regardless of what time he’s gone to sleep, getting him to rub his eyes and yank his ears and pull his hair from tiredness has never been a problem. It’s getting him to close his little eyes that we seem to be doing so badly with.

So now what?

Yesterday, after Khalid’s hour and five minute crying jag, he once again slept for five hours. Five lovely, uninterrupted hours, Alhamdulillah. It’s 10:40 right now, and he’s been crying since ten o’clock. He’s definitely winding down, and I peeked in on him a second ago- he’s laying face down on the bed, he raises his head to cry, gets tired and rests it for a few seconds. Then he raises it to cry again. I don’t know if he’ll beat yesterday’s time, and I don’t know if any progress is being made. This is only the second night anyway, so looking for progress right now is a little early I think.

If anything though, I at least don’t feel like I’m dying of guilt pangs. Yesterday was hard, and I felt horrible, but it yielded very real and very encouraging results. Oh wait, he’s gone quiet…

No, he started again. But the pauses between crying spurts are getting longer and the cries are getting softer and more tired-sounding.

But like I was saying, having done this once yesterday and seen really encouraging results, I don’t feel so bad and it’s not as hard for me today as it was yesterday. My child is sobbing his little eyes pink, and I’m ok. Does this make me a bad mother? I hope not, I would like to believe not. He’s not in pain. He laying in a bed, he’s fussing himself to sleep. He’s fine.

I’ve already gone and spent a long time in the shower (with Owlie listening out for me) but I ran out of hot water after ten minutes so I’m back out again. Khalid’s been crying for 45 minutes and I suppose we’ve got another fifteen to go.

10:50- I tell you, this kid could do commercials for energizer.

11:20- The good news is that Khalid is asleep- the bad news is- I caved. At eleven I went to check on him, and found that he had wiggled past the fortress of pillows and bolsters I had surrounded him with and was lying face-down on the cold, hard, floor- crying. (his mattress is on the floor anyway, so it’s only a two-inch roll down, not a fall, Alhamdulillah) But I couldn’t help it. I picked him up and he sighed and shuddered and clung to me. I nursed him to sleep.

I’m sorry and did, and yet I’m not. I feel torn between wanting to do things right and wanting to do right by my son. Why isn’t there a way of putting him to sleep that doesn’t involve making both of us miserable for upwards of an hour? I keep wanting to apologize to him, I feel like this is somehow my fault.

Well, 11:20 is his sleep time, let’s see how many hours he sleeps. I know he’s utterly exhausted, chances are he’ll sleep five hours any.

I feel selfish for putting Khalid through this, and I feel discouraged. 🙁

So once upon a time there was an impossibly cute (MashaAllah) but horribly scheduled son of mine, whose unruly sleep habits have been the only (but rather large) down side to motherhood. He wakes every 40 minutes, night or day, to feed, and drives me rather batty with sleep deprivation.

Everyone and their mother tells me I need to let him cry it out. I know. I know, but it hurts my heart to hear him cry. Really, physically- I can’t explain how it feels to hear him sobbing away. Like how he is now. Sobbing. In the next room.

Last week, after many frustrating and futile attempts to put Khalid to sleep (punctuated by being hit in the face with his flailing arms and being savagely bitten with his pointy little teeth) I put him down and walked out the bedroom. I hadn’t been intending to let him cry it out, but ten minutes into it, I decided what the heck. Let’s go for it.

It took an hour, and I’m sure it was rougher on him than it was on me, but I’m not sure it was by much. In the end, it finally happened. Bebeface cried himself to sleep, and he slept for five hours straight.

Five hours.

Straight.

Five hours, from a kid who’s never slept longer than 2 hours in his entire life.

Fastforward to this evening- HF left for a five-day business trip, and since he won’t be disturbed by Khalid’s ear-shattering (and heart-breaking) wails, I’ve decided that this is the week we’re gonna cry it out.

It’s 11:24 right now, and Khalid has been crying since 11:15. I know he’s exhausted, I left him in the bed with a full stomach, rubbing his eyes and pulling his ears out of exhaustion, but the second I closed the door, the BebeSiren sounded and he’s been wailing away ever since.

I learned from the last time that after half an hour he’ll start to wind down. Everyone I’ve talked to has told me that kids learn fast- let him cry it out two or three times and they’ll learn to soothe themselves to sleep. One woman I know did it over the weekend- she went away for two nights in a row, and the husband volunteered to keep an eye on the baby- and it was a hard weekend but the baby learned in two days, and now she sleeps straight through.

Admittedly, I feel horrible right now. Khalid is now hiccuping as well as wailing- and I can hear the little gasps and shudders between cries, but he is winding down.

I wish it didn’t have to be like this. I wish he came with a ‘sleep’ button. I can’t really sit and listen to him cry, I need to find something else to do- like take a shower or something. I didn’t turn the water heater on though, so the water’s too cold to be any sort of pleasant distraction.

11:31- Still wailing. Oh wait, there was a pause. Ok, now he’s gotten a second wind and seems to have hit a higher pitch. I’m going to go wash dishes or something.

11:53- Well, there are longer and longer pauses between the crying fits now- I know that these silent moments are spent in rubbing his eyes or pulling his hair, and I know he must be exhausted. The crying is getting tireder, the pauses longer- I think the water might be warm enough. I wonder- if I take a ten minute shower- will he be asleep by the time I come out? Let’s see. I need to relax, I feel wound up and tense.

12:21- Asleep. All quiet. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. It took Khalid an hour and five minutes- which is five minutes longer than his previous time, but maybe tomorrow will be better InshaAllah. And let’s see how long he sleeps now InshaAllah. I spent the last fifteen min taking the longest, hottest shower I’ve had in months, and I’m ready to pray and hit the sack. I’m really looking forward to five beautiful hours of gorgeous lovely sleep.

(Many thanks to everyone who’s kept pushing me to just do this- to retrain Khalid no matter how hard it is. Taubah, my Momma, and especially HF– who’s been nagging me to do this- even volunteered to take Khalid for a weekend, and has been so patient with my foolish refusal to do so until this point. It could only last so long. You can only run so long on sleep deprivation, and not letting Khalid learn how to fall asleep on his own doesn’t do him any favors. Also, much love to Owlie– who’s been the Abez Distraction Committee these past two times I’ve let Khalid cry it out. >>>hugs<<< )

JazakAllah