Saturday, January 05, 2008

All by myself... ZZZZZ

When we first had him, our intention was only to let him sleep with us for the first 6 months. After that we wanted to train him to sleep on his own and preferably in his own room. Needless to say my mother was totally against the idea. She cited various hadiths and studies to convince us in Islam it is not right to let your child sleep away from his parents at such an early age. We should allow him to sleep with us on the bed for at least the first 2 years (the permitted breastfeeding period) To be honest, The Don and I had our own misgivings about our original intentions. We absolutely did not agree with Gina "Cruella" Ford's way of sleeping. (you know, the let your child sleep in his room and let him cry to sleep method). The Don couldn't part with his son and I thought it will be very tiring for me to have to get up, take MM out from his cot and breastfeed him in the middle of the night and later put him back to sleep again. Needless to say we didn't follow through with it. Besides, apart from the fact that MM loves to push us off the King sized bed when he tosses and turns, he was no trouble at all. (Who would have thought a kid his size will need so much space!) He hardly woke up in the middle of the night and when he did, all I needed was to breastfeed him for a few minutes and he will fall back into slumber. He wasn't fussy and gave us no trouble falling asleep either although he hates the idea and will only consider sleeping when he can barely open his eyes and has zero energy left.

Still the idea of him in our bed wasn't something we relish. We both felt that if we continued with the practice, it will be even harder to make him leave our bed when he was older and could come up with a million excuses and tricks. Also, now that he was only on partial bottle feeding, we thought long and hard and felt the time was ripe to introduce some changes. However we believd in doing things the Jane Nelson way (kind yet firm), a method that doesnt work with all kids but has worked great with MM.

We compromised with him and placed him in his own grossly underused cot right next to our bed. He was quite tired but not very sleepy yet. I played peek a boo with him for a while, kissed him goodnight and gave him two of his favourite books to read on his own in his own cot. He was initially surprised why we put him in his cot but when he told him very very gently to lie down, he surprised us and did. He got a up a few times and whined for us to carry him out while pointing to our bed. But we persevered and coax him to lie down and flip through his favourite books. I played a few finger games with him (without talking or laughing) and soon he was too sleepy to protest. He laid down on his own, tossed and turned a little and before we knew it he was sleeping soundly.

We were both pleasantly surprised to see how well it went. No great bawl and dramatic crying, (I imagine my mother would have knocked on our door if it had happened ) very little resistance and yes he slept throughout the night. He semi-woked a while at 6.30, we carried him to our bed for his morning breastmilk session and put him back in his cot. We wanted him to wake up in the morning in his own cot so he can remember what happend last night and hopefully realises that this is the way to go from now on.

I'm glad the first night went without a hitch. Let's hope the same happens tonight!

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