sleep baby sleep

As I am writing this post I am listening to my almost 5 month year old throw a fit in his bed. It is 7:30 and he is choking himself screaming. 

Pause- I must go calm him

It took 7 minutes of patting, singing and talking to him for him to calm, by calm I mean he is at a fuss and tired talking not complete quiet. This is day 2 of our sleep training.

If you remember awhile back I wrote this post. At first I wanted Mason to sleep on his own and for longer than 2 hours. It took him 3 and a half months to sleep more than 2 hours at a time at night. I was exhausted to say the least and was ready to sleep train at 3 months. I asked for advice and realized I needed to cherish the moments of rocking/nursing him to bed. After all the comments and encouragement I decided I was going to wait till Mason was 6 months to sleep train him. I spent the next month rocking him to sleep through cries and hours of shhing.

Things have changed. Before Mason would fuss when being rocked but it was a tired fuss, he would whimper and dose off just to wake up and whimper more. I thought it was cute. The last 2 weeks he has decided to take him whimper to a full blown scream/shriek/yell/choke. At first I thought he was just extra fussy or tired but as the days continued he continued. He was doing this any time we tried to put him to sleep, all 3 naps and bed time, he was also doing it for 2+ hours at a time. It was getting old fast. I am home in the evening with Mason by myself during the week due to Austin's work schedule and I was getting stressed quickly. 

I always told Austin of the struggle at bed time and how I didn't know what to do. I tried moving bed time up but unless I nursed him to sleep then held him super still for 20-30 minutes before putting him in bed it was a scream fest.

Last weekend Austin experienced it with him. After 3 horrible naps attempts and 2 hours at bedtime we both decided we had to do something. 

Like I said I wanted to wait to sleep train him but when he is screaming uncontrollably in attempts to fight his sleep we knew we had to stop it. We have no problem rocking/walking/singing him to sleep but when he is acting this way through all of that we knew it was best to teach him. Yesterday he napped nicely, falling asleep within 5 minutes of being placed in his crib. Night was different. He cried for 44 minutes, I patted and talked to him the whole time.

Another thing you need to know is that when I go to calm him, patting does not work, I consistently patted and talked to him for the whole 44 minutes and never once did he calm till he fell asleep. I have stopped writing this post numerous times to go in and calm him. I can pat and pat till my hands have fallen asleep and it doesn't work, picking him up only makes it worse as well. Once we pick him up he continues to cry for a good 5-10 minutes and the second he is placed back it starts again.

Today he napped twice. First time laying down nicely and the second throwing a fit for 20 minutes. I hate hearing him cry,it breaks my heart.Doesn't help that it sounds like "ma ma mamama"  but I know I am doing the right thing, for us at least. He needs to learn that sleep time is not a time to throw fits. 

I wish I could rock him to bed every night but when it has gotten to the point that it is at what else can a mama do?

It took me 53 minutes to write this post and him to fall asleep tonight. I hope this gets easier for him and me