Sean's sleep issues

I planned on doing another video about the issues we are having with Sean sleeping, but honestly I couldn't get through the video without crying.  I am so mentally and psychically exhausted, I am at my breaking point.

So to give you a little back ground on Sean's sleeping, He has been an amazing sleeper since day one.  By two weeks old he was only getting up once at night, by 10 weeks he was sleeping through the night.  Of course we would have a few nights that he would get up a few times but it was rare.  Sean's sleeping schedule started getting messed up once he started teething which was at 4 months old, it start off slow he started not sleeping as long as he usually did (getting up at 4:30 instead of 6:00am) by 5 months old he was getting up at least twice and wouldn't go back in his crib, so I would sleep on the couch with him. At 6 months he cut his first tooth and within 5 days of cutting his first tooth, three more came in.  Right then I knew he sleep was messed up because of teething and now that he cut this teeth he was going to go back to sleeping through the night again... Wrong again!  This was only the beginning, as the weeks past it was only getting worse. in desperation I decided to try the cry it out method (CIO)  the controlled one (where you go in and check on them every 3, 5, 10 mins) After 30 mins of him screaming I gave up (one of my many mistakes) I wrote it off saying "it's just not for us."  I then decided that I needed a more constant bed time routine and was hopeful that this way the key to his sleeping issues... again I was wrong!  Now three months later we are still dealing with Sean not sleeping through the night and it's only gotten worse.  I get him to sleep at 7:30 or 8pm and by 10:30 - 11pm he is up again, I usually can't get him back to bed unless I lay with him on the couch.  So from this point we sleep on the couch together (if you are wondering why not put him in my bed, for some reason he does not like to sleep in my bed, I can only get him back to sleep on the couch) It is very uncomfortable sleeping with him, he tosses and turns all night and starts to cry because he wants more room to move so I lay him at one end of the couch and put my leg up by him so he won't roll off and i attempt to sleep on the other end.  He is good like that for maybe an hour but then he wants to nurse so I can to switch positions once again.  This goes on all night and neither one of us gets much rest.  My only break is on the weekends when my husband is home and will get up with him in the morning (6 or 7 am) and let me go back to bed. Since Sean still won't take a bottle, i only get 1 to 1 1/2 hours of extra sleep. Not only has this effected Sean's sleep, it has also effected his mood during the day. He is so much more fussier and grumpy. I miss my happy little boy who slept through the night!!

The underline problem is Sean does not know how to self sooth, he has always been nursed to sleep and because of that he's never learnt to put himself to sleep.  So today out of frustration and hopelessness I looked up every book on sleep methods and I came across "Sleeping through the night: How infants, toddlers, and their parents can get a good night's sleep" by Jodi A. Mindell, Ph.D. It had great reviews so I went online to see if any of my local libraries had it, and I was in luck.  I started reading this book as soon as I got home and I have read half of it.  I love how the book is written, it's very educational but not preach and has stories of other parents that have had sleep issues with their kids.   to do a very quick over view of the book, it basically states that you have to set up a bed time routine and put you child to bed sleepy but awake (which is the hard part) and doing a controlled CIO. This is what we decided out bed time routine will look like:

Start at 7:00pm

-Give him a bath

-Nurse him (but not to sleep)

-Go in his room and read a few books and have cuddle time

-Then bed

The four B's - Bath, Boobie, Books, and Bed

Tonight was the first night, at 7:38pm we put him in his crib and after screaming and crying he finally feel asleep at 9:06pm. We checked on him at least every 5 minutes until he fell asleep. It was so hard to hear him cry back there but I had to stick with it.  I'm pretty sure he will get up at some point tonight, according to the book I should do what we always do, which is nurse him back to bed.  After a week or so the night time wakings soon stop.  I will be doing another blog update as we going along and I will be sure to keep everyone updated on Sean progress. I also hope to do a video once I am a little more rested and not so emotional.  Please keep your fingers crossed this works :)