Bye, bye paci

Little Man used to be the model for baby sleep. We'd put him down and he'd cry for 15 minutes tops and then sleep for 10-12 hours straight. It was wonderful. Then, he began to pull up. Jack's been having some pretty significant sleep problems since he's been able to pull himself up in the crib. He'll get standing and then just hang on to the side of the crib and cry, call for me, cry, cry, cry. It wouldn't be so terrible if it was just when we put him to bed but he's been waking in the middle of the night and doing it too. It's been nearly impossible to get him settled without picking him up. Once Jason or I got him out of the crib and soothed him he'd fall right to sleep, only to wake as soon as we put him down. Well, we've used the cry-it-out approach for quite some time with success but since Jack's been starting the night wakings we haven't been very consistent about it. Since Jason's been away on a business trip I decided that the time was right for me to solve this sleep issue once and for all.

Sunday night was really hard. Jack cried for an hour before falling asleep. He slept for an hour and the woke up crying again. Cried for an hour more and then fell back asleep. Slept for 2 hours, woke, cried for 40ish minutes or so, fell back asleep. Woke again, cried, slept - and on and on... Finally, at 4 am I could no longer take it and resorted to putting him into the swing to sleep - usually a surefire solution. He slept til 7. Needless to say, we were both exhausted during the day and I was pretty much at my wits end.

I met up with my friend Camron and her son Jude, who's 5 days older than Jack. I was telling her about Jack's sleeping dilemma and she said Jude did the same thing a couple of months ago. Her solution - take the paci away. Apparently, Jude was waking in the middle of the night and couldn't find his paci to soothe him back to sleep so he would cry for mom to come and get it for him. Once he realized he wasn't getting the paci back he learned to go back to sleep without it. Very interesting. So, I took Jack's paci away immediately.

Jack took a short nap yesterday afternoon without his paci - after crying for 40 minutes. Jack went to bed without his paci - after crying for an hour. But... Jack didn't wake up last night. He stirred for a few minutes a couple of times but never woke up screaming like he has been for the past couple of weeks. We both finally got some good rest and, who knows, maybe the problem's solved.