Ever since Piggy was born, she
would fall asleep with me. At first, it
was all cute and I didn’t want to set her down and just wanted to cuddle with
her. I realized real quick that I messed
up by letting her sleep with me every night.
At first, it was an accident, letting her sleep with me. She was born at eight at night and I was beat
dead tired and she was hungry so I let her eat…and I fell asleep while she was
eating. That’s how it all started. When she came home from the hospital, I tried
to get her to sleep in her crib on her own, but, oh, the crying! I couldn’t stand to leave my little Piggy
crying her heart out in her vast crib all on her own. It was ripping my heart apart. Even when I was in the room I couldn’t take
the crying. My mind told me she was
unhappy and I needed to fix it, so I did.
Fast forward a few months, I was starting to feel the lack of sleep
kicking in. Take two on getting her to
sleep on her own and wouldn’t you know it didn’t work? I tried over seven times during her first
year of life to get her to sleep on her own.
I tried everything from letting her cry it out to running around the
house with her sheet attached to me like a cape to get my smell on it and
putting her toys in the crib with her to let her play to uncomfortably laying
in the crib with her until she falls asleep then completing mission impossible
to escape her clutches.
I finally put my foot down when not
only was I not sleeping well, but also was starting to suffer from a badly
hurting back because of the goofy positions I had to be in for her to get to
sleep. She had to start sleeping in her own bed. I was finally able to get her to do it after
a mere two weeks. Yes, TWO weeks! Keep reading to find out how!
One of my New Year’s resolutions
was to be able to sleep in my own bed without assistance from Piggy. I started the process a few days before New
Year’s. When she started to show signs
of being tired, I would bring her into the bedroom, sit her on the bed, pull
the covers to where they were over her legs, then simply walk out of the room
and close the door. I’ll be the first to
tell you, she was not my biggest fan when I would do this. She would start to scream and cry and fuss,
but I had to tune it out. I had to give
her some tough love. That first night,
she fell asleep after about an hour of crying.
Let me take this time to emphasize that I did not go in that room.
Period. It was pretty rough for
me. When she finally stopped crying, I
still didn’t go in there. I waited about
thirty minutes of no crying to finally go in there. When I did, she was out like a light curled
up on a pillow. It was just so cute that
I had to take a picture of it.
I kept up with putting her on the
bed and letting her cry herself to sleep for an entire week. During that week, when it came time for me to
go to bed, I would simply just go in the room and go to bed with her. Yes, she still wound up making my arm fall
asleep every night, but at least she reached a point where she was no longer
needing me to go to sleep and was getting the idea that she had to go to sleep
on her own. Did she still cry? Of course!
But she would get to the point of realizing that I wasn’t going to give
in to her crying so she’d just go to sleep.
Once that first week was up, I set
up her crib and put it in its own room.
That night, I put her to sleep in the crib. She fussed, cried, and screamed, but I was
treating it just like the week before. I
did not go in that room! I had added a pillow from the bed, her
blanket I wrapped her up in every night, and her sound machine. Everything that I could put in there and make
it feel like her old room for her. I
seriously believe that helped quite a bit.
Once she finally fell asleep (about forty five minutes later, she was
curled up on the pillow wrapped in her blanket.
From that night on, she has been
sleeping in her own bed. To celebrate
three weeks of being in her own bed, I got her a bedding set—ok, so it was
mainly for her birthday, but it still was to celebrate her sleeping on her
own. Oh the wonderful sleep I’ve been
having ever since. I sleep straight
through the night instead of waking up three times each night. I wake up without an aching back and feeling
more tired than when I went to bed.
So here’s a quick list recap of
what worked with Piggy to get her to stop co-sleeping (let them be known as the
ten basic commandments of no more co-sleeping):
1.
Plan on at least two weeks, if not more. First week, train baby to sleep on their
own. Second week, place in own bed.
2.
DO NOT GO IN THAT ROOM! No matter how much crying there is.
3.
DO NOT CAVE IN AND LET THEM SLEEP WITH YOU AFTER
STARTING. This is just counterproductive.
4.
Make sure BOTH of you are ready for this. I’m sure it was hard on both me and Piggy
doing this.
5.
Have a celebration present for x amount of time
sleeping on their own.
6.
Make the room as recognizable as possible. Add some curtains like the ones in the room
your child’s used to, a pillow, toys, you get the point.
7.
Keep the bedtime to the same time every
night. Its okay to break bed time every
once in a while, but don’t make a habit out of it.
8.
Let the kid have their own room. Sharing with siblings is okay as long as they
have around the same bed time (not one with a 7:00 bed time and another with a
8:30 bedtime. When one goes to bed, the
other will wake up. No bueno.)
9.
Putting them in their bed for nap time helps a
LOT with the transition of buddy sleeping to lonely sleeping
10.
Claim your bed back!
Did you have problems getting your
child to sleep on their own? What did
you try and what worked for you?
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