When you have a baby you expect sleepless nights. You know those are part of the deal. And we were fine with that. I think I thought that Tucker would continually sleep better and better until he mastered sleeping all night. I was not prepared for him to sleep all night for several months and then stop and want to be awake for 2-4 hours in the middle of the night and then sleep until late morning. This is brutal.
From the time we brought Tucker home he was an ok sleeper. He would wake up, eat and go immediately back to sleep (unless he was sick or cutting teeth) but around the beginning of the summer he started waking up again. And then he wanted to stay awake. That's where our problem is. I HATE staying awake. Some nights I can't. We've tried a million different things.
Crying it out. Doesn't work. We've done that for a week at a time five separate times in his life. He cries for at least a hour and then finally falls asleep but the moment anything changes in our routine he goes back to crying for hours at a time. This is traumatic for all of us and it just doesn't work for us.
I determined before he was even born that I'd always rock him to sleep for the night. Those moments are so precious to me and I know the days he will want to be rocked will pass quickly so I'm soaking them up. Even though a lot of books and websites encourage parents to teach their children to fall asleep independently rocking has worked well of us. It gives me some cuddle time and him some extra security. Its one of those moments of motherhood you dream about and I treasure it!
The only thing that seems to do the trick in the middle of the night is to put Tucker in our bed. This is one of those things we didn't want to start, but when you get so tired you can't hold your own head up it seems like a better idea then it once did. I don't know that any of the three of us rest very well in our queen sized bed, but a little sleep is better then none at all. One perk of this bad habit is getting to wake up next to two sweet boys. Tucker peaks his eyes open at me and then raises up to kiss me with his sweet open mouth and then we stretch and he smiles so sweetly. I think he likes having us at arms reach first thing instead of waking up alone. I guess we'll just see how things go and we may ask for a king sized bed for Christmas. ha!
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Every happy child would tell you that the best place in the world is in their parents bed. We wanted that our child to sleep in his own bed for a long time. but by 5 months he was in our bed and now he turned three and sleeps in his bed but comes to our bed at 4 am. we are just enjoying the moments because when he gets older, other things will be more important than being with his parents. God loves us anyway. and you are not failing as a mum, you are the best mum ever.
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