"Sleep-cries are referred as such as the child is initially still asleep when it 1st occurs. The cries are initially very intense, as if the child is in pain or had a terrible nightmare. This initial intense cries often subside on it's own within 2-5mins, followed by fussy/complainy/whiny cries, and the child is in deep sleep again within 7-15mins. Hence, the importance of waiting for a few mins. If one rushes in, one risks actually waking the child and create an actual nightwaking."
So I set the early bed time. He was asleep by 6:00p after his bath, massage, nursing, and the rock. He fell asleep easily and quickly and I laid him down in the crib on the boppy. He was out. I was trying something new by playing an audiobook for him to sleep by. At this point I would try anything that sounded good. At 7:00p he was awake screaming and I rushed in as usual. After many tries of getting him to quiet down and failing I gave up. I came in the living room and let him fall back to sleep on my chest while I read on the computer. That's when I found the information about the sleep-cries. So after about 45 minutes on my chest I laid him back in his crib, no boppy, no sound and I went to bed. One hour later on the dot here came the cries, soft at first and then working into a full blown scream. Robert went to get up, but I stopped him. "Let's give him 5 minutes I said." And so we waited. Both of us laying in bed, tense, our feet shifting waiting for either Caleb's crying or the five minutes to end. At minute three the sobs became screams, at minute four the coughing started, and then at minute five it stopped. Just like that! It wasn't totally over. He cried again for another minute or two, then had that horrible sob that made every muscle fiber in my being shudder. That was the hardest part, but then even that stopped within a minute or so. I could hear him moving around in there for a few minutes, but then he was asleep. Fast asleep, for the first time by himself in his crib. Robert and I let out a sigh, we didn't realize we were holding our breath. It was 9:00p and the whole episode only lasted about 15 minutes.
And then he slept! It was 1:00a before he awoke, this was his normal wake time, I couldn't believe it. I got up and fed him, he was wide awake, and I wasn't sure where to go from here. So I reverted back to the old way, putting him on my chest to sleep. After 30 minutes he was still semi awake and I had to pee so I figured where is the harm, I'll go back to the five minutes. I laid him in his crib and he started to squirm, this escalated to the scream and then the sob, but again right at the five minute mark it stopped. It followed the same suit as the earlier episode, and I stuck it out. And then for the second time in one night, he slept.
The next waking was 4:00a, again this is the "normal" pattern time. I was pretty tired at this point and I gave in letting him sleep with me. I figured why push my luck? We slept till 6:30a and a very bright eyed happy baby greeted me this morning.
We also went to the breast feeding class yesterday with Eva and Colton. Caleb had a blast talking to all the other babies! He was 17.2 lbs with his clothes on. This is the same weight as the 6m old babies in the class, and he officially outweighs Grace by 1lb.
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