If you don’t have kids or any interest in getting a little one to sleep when they’re throwing a whopper of a tantrum, you might want to skip this post, because that’s pretty much all I’m going to write about. On the other hand, if you’re curious, grab a mug of tea and some chocolate biscuits; it’s a long one!

I’ve been m.i.a. for the past few days due to a rather challenging phase in Bowie’s development: we’ve begun Sleep Bootcamp.

It’s every bit as traumatizing as I’d anticipated.

It all began on the morning of day six, when my Mum found a bargain cot in Aldi. Part of the reason I started co-sleeping with Bowie back in July was that he outgrew his moses basket and we didn’t have a cot for him yet (despite a good friend of mine having one at her parents’ house that we could take). Disorganized and scatty, after three months of Alex sleeping on the floor and me worrying about rolling over the baby at night and developing panda-eyes from lack of sleep, Tuesday found us in Aldi buying a brand new bed for our little prince.

I used up most of that day’s energy reserves going cross-eyed trying to study the instruction manual, screwing and unscrewing rails and boards until eventually we had the cot assembled (just in time to save our relationship, ha!).

It must have been the chocolate that revived me or the motivation of setting up the cot, even though we wouldn’t use it for a while yet. Because that evening, when Bowie awoke for the third time after going to bed, and continued screeching even when my Mum tried to settle him, I made the decision I’d been putting off for weeks:

It was time to say goodbye to the “boob to sleep” routine, once and for all.

It had been ok at the start, I could feed him almost to sleep, put him down he’d fuss a little, then drift off to sleep. Then I started having to get him completely asleep before I put him down or he’d kick up a fuss. Then I couldn’t put him down without him waking and had to lie down with him to feed him to sleep. And then, the last few nights, even after he fell asleep, the mere sound of the mattress springs creaking as I got out of bed would wake him and he’d demand the boob once more.

And all this was on top of a new patch in the last three weeks where he was waking up throughout the night, almost every hour, looking for the boob in order to fall back asleep.

It wasn’t working for either of us.

And so, spontaneously, on Tuesday night, I made the break. Taking him off my Mum, I spent two and a half hours trying to sooth a screaming baby and hold myself together through it all. I’m not sure who cried more.

By the end of it, my arms were literally hanging off me and my ears were ringing. Once we hit 11 pm, it was already four hours since his bedtime feed. For a little man used to a steady drip of milk through the night this in itself was new and given he was slightly calm at this stage, I decided to let him feed. He wouldn’t settle after, but by then Alex had come into the room and took him for a cuddle.

Possibly through sheer exhaustion, he let go and fell asleep in Alex’s arms and stayed asleep as Alex put him back in the bed. The next three hours were the best sleep I’ve had in a long time.

We weren’t done yet. Around 2 am he woke up and I gave him a feed, sitting up in the bed. As soon as I put him back down, we were off again. Round two. Another hour of screeching and fighting it, until Alex took him and they fell asleep together on his mattress.

We got two and a half hours out of him this time. At 5.30 am he woke, once again looking for the boob and I struggled to soothe him for roughly an hour and a half. When he did finally fall asleep, this time it was in my arms. And he was so utterly pooped that when I gently placed him on the bed next to me, he stayed fast asleep for an hour and a half. As did I.

We spent yesterday in recovery!

To be fair, I think I was more upset than Bowie, he seemed in great form all day. Possibly from the extra cuddles and play-time and bath-time that I was using to try and assuage the Mum guilt.

Last night, we went for it again and it was still tough, so tough. But there was major progress already from the first night; I didn’t have to pick him up once, his roars weren’t hysterical and it took just an hour and a half and finally he was fast asleep, in the bed. Compared with the previous night where he screamed on and off for nearly two and a half hours while I was holding him, I considered that a massive win.

Too good to be true? As I settled down to watch The Apprentice and relax after my late dinner, thinking I might finally get a normal evening to myself for the first time in months, I heard a little cough on the monitor. Followed by a little sniff. Followed by the beginning of the next hour’s struggles.

But, the major achievement was that Bowie managed six hours between his last feed before bed and the next one, when he woke at 1 am, after which he settled quickly and easily. At 4 am he required an hour of cuddles and reassurance yet again, before he finally fell back asleep, this time in the bed lying beside me.

At 6.45 am, I was up and expressing milk in the bathroom, my boobs feeling like they were going to burst. Six hours again since he had last fed!

I was in shock. Delighted shock! My rustlings probably woke him as minutes later he started fussing so I got him up and changed his nappy quick as I could, assuming he must be starving. He fed minutes later and kept getting distracted by the clock on the wall. Clearly he was just fine.

There is so much more to add from tonight’s experiences but this post has become less of a scribble and more of an essay so I’ll finish up for now. But I’m so proud of our little man. He’s come through something incredibly difficult at such a small age. He’s my absolute hero.

Ciao darlings!

Liz