To sleep, perchance to dream....

Ay, there's the rub.

I will begin by saying I had a very lengthy post all ready to publish and then it disappeared. That was a few days ago, and since then, I have a different story. But prior to 4 days ago, this was my story:

I don't know the last time I got a good 8 hours of sleep. I mean consecutive, non-interrupted sleep. I'm sure it was over 7 1/2 months ago. And I just happen to have a 7 1/2 month old baby! ...coincidence? I think not. I'm not totally sure how it started or where we went wrong, but somewhere along the line, we created a nightmare when it comes to getting that baby to sleep. I'm sure it has something to do with me feeding him while I sit in bed, then continuing to hold him while we read scriptures and such at night, and by then he'd likely be asleep. Usually we'd lay him down in his crib. But sometimes he was just too sweet and so I'd keep holding him. And other times when I'd get him or Jack would bring him in for me to feed him in the middle of the night, I would be too tired and wouldn't want to get out of bed to go put him back in his crib, so I'd just keep holding him. And then he had a cold for a while and couldn't breathe well laying down, so I would hold him kinda upright while he slept.
A combination of all of those things and more I'm sure lead to a baby boy who wouldn't sleep unless I was holding him. For naps I'd feed him and hold his squirming, flopping self until he fell asleep (the falling asleep process could take 40 minutes) and then if I'd lay him down he'd either wake up immediately or within 20 minutes. So I'd either sit there and read while holding him, take a nap with him, or put him down and only have a few minutes to get stuff done. That wasn't working out very well for me. At night, I would have to hold him all night long. One friend called it the "mommy mattress" and she was right. He had to be laying on me to sleep. It had gotten to the point where even if I'd just move him next to me in the bed, he'd fuss. Again, not really working out for me. As great as it is to cuddle a sleeping baby, I missed being able to snuggle with my hubby. We'd talked about doing something to get this baby to sleep better, but didn't really know what to do and I kept finding excuses to put of starting...Jack was busy studying & taking the GMAT so I didn't want him to not get any sleep at night, we were moving, we were going out of town for a few days... Finally, about a week ago, we decided that enough was enough. I checked out several different books from the library. I had heard of Dr. Sears but didn't know what his theory on sleeping was...I was quite surprised to find out that he recommends almost exactly what we were doing (and what wasn't working for us). He says to cater to your baby in every way. Sleep with your baby until he decides to move to another bed, nurse your baby all night long if he wants to and until he self-weans, hold him all the time... doing anything else will ruin your child and they'll never be able to trust you or depend on you in life and you'll loose your mother's intuition. Sorry, doctor, but that's not going to work for us. I love my baby but I can't do that. The other book I got from the library was exactly opposite. It said if you don't let your baby cry it out and learn to deal on his own, he'll never be able to be an independent person and you'll ruin them. Come on, people. There's got to be a middle ground here!
A friend recommended & let me borrow "The Baby Whisperer" by Tracy Hogg. She has a fairly middle-of-the-road approach that seemed do-able to us. Her program includes a routine during the day: Eat, Activity time, Sleep, (You time!) and a sleep routine that we've kind of modified so that we turn on music, turn lights down, (at night, read a story & say prayer), swaddle baby, sit quietly with him for five minutes, lay him down with him awake, and sit there next to him with a hand resting on him until he falls asleep. The first night was pretty rough. The only sleep I got was when I asked Jack to take a turn for a bit and I think I then got 1 1/2 hrs of sleep. He'd calm down, fall asleep, and the I'd go to my bed. I'd lay there for 5-10 minutes trying to fall asleep myself, and then he'd start wailing in the other room. I was a zombie the next day. The second night was great for me---Jack was on duty. But it did go a lot better than the first night. Night number three was pretty good. He woke up several times, but went back to sleep a lot faster. Last night (#4) he didn't wake up as many times, but it took longer to go back to sleep. The thing that has really been amazing to me is the naps! Jackson hadn't napped longer than 45 minutes since his sleep-all-day newborn days (unless I was holding him and sleeping with him). Now, we just turn off the lights, on the music, wrap him up, sit with him for five minutes (or less if he starts falling asleep while I'm holding him) and lay him down. He's asleep within 5 minutes. And the best part: He stays asleep for 2 hours! Two hours! Sometimes he wakes up in the middle so we just pop the pacifier back in and maybe put a hand on him for a few minutes and he drifts back off to sleepy land. It is amazing. I'm kind of at a loss, not knowing what to do with myself, but I sure do love it. It's partially the put-down routine, but having the routine/schedule during the day of eat/sleep/activity is making a huge difference for us. I was reluctant to do it because I like the flexibility to be able to go where ever, whenever but it's totally worth it. I think once we get it firmly established we'll be able to bend it a little here and there, but for now we're trying to stick to it pretty closely.
I'm sure there will be some regression, both in naps and nighttime sleeping, but we've already seen such a huge difference! I wish we started this sooner! We had decided that we'd try this for a week or two, and if it didn't work, we'd do the cry it out method...it's looking like we won't have to though. It is just so liberating, especially the naps!
I know different things work for different people, and I certainly don't fault anyone for doing what works for them, but I'd totally recommend this book & routine to anyone having a hard time with baby sleeping. Oh, and there's a web site with a message board that has helpful tips from other parents on all sorts of topics.

Wow, this post got quite long... butI just can't say enough how huge of a difference this is!