Sleeping purgatory.

It sounds better than sleeping hell because hell is forever and purgatory is only for 10,000 years. And though 10,000 years sounds daunting, it is less than forever, so I'm clinging to hope with what remains of my sanity.

Around 8 months old, BG started sleeping through the night. It was a process to get there since we are not "crying it out". We put him down to sleep and Allen would go up and console him and/or hold him until he fell asleep again when he woke up. He was waking up maybe once or twice between bedtime at 7 pm and when we went to bed at midnight or so. Then he had a solid two weeks of either sleeping through the night completely (waking up anywhere between 4-7 am for a nurse and falling back asleep), or sleeping until at least 2 or 3 am before waking up to nurse. It was miraculous. We were so pleased with him and ourselves for getting to that point without crying it out.

Then he stopped. I don't know why, but I suspect it was a combo of teething and growth spurt. And it kept going and going. Teething and growth spurt was replaced by travel, then illness. He slept through the night for 2 weeks and then stopped for 2 months.

Here's the thing with baby sleep: you expect to be sleep deprived with newborns. But when I went off narcotic painkillers and BG started sleeping next to me, we were getting miraculous amounts of sleep because he would just roll over and latch on and nurse himself to sleep again. I wasn't necessarily sleeping as deeply, as I was always peripherally aware of the baby next to me, but every little bit helps when you have a young infant. Then as he got older and more mobile and moved into the crib, getting long, uninterrupted stretches of sleep became harder. We still got time to ourselves in the evening because he goes to bed before we do, but after we went to bed, if he cries, he comes into our bed. It's just easier on everyone, but he's so much bigger that he is more disruptive to our sleep. When he started sleeping through the night, it was like the clouds parted and the angels sang. And when he stopped, it was like we had been snatched from the arms of heaven. You know in Star Trek: Generations, when Guinan gets taken out of the Nexus and explains that you'd do anything to get back there because it's so perfect? It's like that.

So losing a full nights rest, even after only 2 weeks, seemed pretty devastating. Was it something we did? Was it something we didn't do? Will he ever sleep through the night again or are we going to be the only parents in history with a 40 year old son who still nurses to sleep and won't sleep through the night? These are the thoughts that go through your head.

After a few weeks, I borrowed a friend's copy of "The No Cry Sleep Solution". I was hopeful when I opened it, thinking it would give us some new tricks to try. After I finished it, my reaction was, "Crap! We already do all that stuff!" Kind of like when you read the article about how to save money every month, but it's all stuff you already do. One the one hand, I was peeved because we were getting desperate, but once I let it all sink in, I realized that it meant we were already on the right track and just had to stay the course. If we keep doing what we're doing, eventually, he'll sleep again. She made several great points in the book, but the one that stuck with me was that sleep training requires either crying or time. Since we would prefer to avoid crying, we choose time.

So, after all of that, Monday night, BG made it until 2 am only waking up once or twice. Unfortunately, he was wide awake and wanted to play between 2 and 4 am. Not. Fun. Then Tuesday night, he made it to 2 or 3 am without waking. Then last, clouds parted, angels sang and he slept from 8:30 pm to 5:45 am! Hallelujah! And the only reason he was awake so late is because we all have stupid Norovirus and he threw up as he was falling asleep.

When I started writing this post a few days ago, I thought we'd never sleep again. But it looks like we're seeing the light at the end of a long tunnel!