I Said I'd Never Do It But I Did

I needed to sleep and this family pic is my current fave 👦🏻

As I come back to this keyboard, a blank page staring back at me just waiting for me to provide, it inevitably brings me back to the irresistible gaze of my sweet son. As he looks deep into my eyes, awaiting my touch, my love, nourishment and tender care. What a daily honor it is to be wanted and needed in this way. Speaking of such glory of the eyes, it has been a big boost of confidence rewarding me with the gift of time now that my eyeballs aren’t glued to the baby monitor every single second that he’s in his room. I’m less afraid to poop and shower with the door closed, I dive right into tasks around the house once I lay him down, chill and watch a entire episodes of American Idol (my current guilty pleasure), while he’s safely napping in his Nestig. For me that’s MAJOR PROGRESS, but it most definitely wasn’t a walk in the park to get here. We started our Taking Cara Babies sleep training journey exactly one week ago today, and let me tell you, I was beyond STRESSED + STRUGGLING at the start.

I sent a text to my sister as I stepped into the bedtime ring last Wednesday night: “It has officially begun. He’s in the crib and just decided to scream for 3 mins straight. Now he’s rolling around…I’m pretty sure this is going to be harder for me than it is for him.” Honestly, at first it seemed as if it was going rather smoothly. We completed our nighttime routine of play, a solids’ selection, grand dinner milk feed and read, bath time to the beat, a musical massage, slid into our PJs, a little slow dance with Mommy and smooth soaring in the air into a light landing in our crib (we had just put a new excellent quality, breathable mattress in there since he’s a stomach sleeper so I was excited about that too). He layed there quietly, so soft and sweet, then mildly fussed for about 5 mins. We did one pop-in, per the advice of the TCB course we had completed, and he was asleep 1 min later. It took him all of 6 mins to get to sleep and it was only night one. Had me feeling like a heavyweight champ! We opted in for weaning night feedings so rather than having to wake up every couple hours, for the first time in our parenting history we would do one single late night feed. 10:30 pm was the golden meal time we chose and the prerequisite was he had to be asleep for at least 5-10 mins for us to pick him up and initiate the feeding. The smooth kickoff was too good to be true and he aggressively woke up at 10:20 am, 10 mins before his planned night feeding and it hurt like hell to get through this part. My initial thoughts as soon as I had to hear my kid’s screechy screaming cry for 5 then 10 then 15 mins: “this is awful, it’s not working, I hate this, I know my kid needs me and he’s hungry. This feels like cruel torture. I feel like a terrible parent!” Time was moving at the speed of a snail and Sage had been crying for 45 mins (longer than I have ever let him wail without immediately rushing to his aid). I was barely holding on and the periodic pop-ins felt like they were making things worse. Every time Jim or I went in for a short 20 seconds of reassurance, he would start to calm down and then cry even harder when we walked out of the room. I thought about giving up repeatedly not knowing if following through for the sake of better sleep was even worth it anymore. He eventually fell back to sleep for long enough for us to step in and feed him. It was tough to snooze after feeling defeated and depleted but I was able to get in a couple Z’s before he woke again. At 3:10 am, my eyes sprung open as he loudly cried out for us. I did my best to remain strong and with a few pop-ins he was back to sleep at 3:53. While trying to see the positive it in it all, I was able to pump, racking up my milk supply for the next day and get another hour and a half of sleep. When I exuberantly woke Sage the next morning I received the sweetest reward of him nursing on me, suckling as OG curled up behind my knees. For a moment, all was so peaceful. I thought to myself, “THIS is such a beautiful blessing.” 10 mins into our bright and early breastmilk brigade, Sage stopped to wrinkle his eyebrows as he stared and reached up to grab at my armpit hair. I instantly burst into laughter. (Yes, Mommy really needed a wax and luckily I had the time to go get one yesterday).

Night 2 was still pretty brutal. It seemed like it was going well, bedtime routine into sleep then night feeding and then we entered the wee hours of the morning. A colossal disaster began in my household when the clock hit 2:28 am. I worried that he would lose his voice or miss a breath and it was totally torture for me as he cried relentlessly. It felt like I was neglecting my baby, letting him suffer through this. I can’t even begin to describe the alarm that was set off in the depths of my soul. The aching my heart endured with each passing minute, his cries often escalating outrageously, punching me harder and harder in my core. It was during this particular rough round of tears that I created a cap and told my husband there was absolutely NO WAY that I would let this continue beyond two hours. Jimmy laid with me, consoling me and cuddling to comfort me. He reminded me that if we caved it would undo everything we had worked to achieve thus far and I sharply responded in agony. “I know my child is hungry and looking for me to help him and I just don’t care what anyone else tells me, I can not forsake him!” I watched as he struggled to comfort himself, sucking his thumb, the foot of his pajamas, the pacifier, anything he could reach for yet nothing was soothing enough so he continued to cry out. It was now 4 am and my baby’s desperate cries became even more aggressive. With tears streaming down my own face, my husband sat up to encourage me, massaged my back and did his absolute best to get me to relax. He tried taking my mind off of the process but nothing could calm my anxiety in that moment. It was heart-wrenching, so hard to not feel like this was a cruel, unforgivable act. Would he remember that we did this one day? Would it live somewhere in his subconscious? Then at 4:10 am, 18 minutes before my proclaimed tap-out time, he put himself back to sleep. Whew!! I stayed up, eyes locked on the Nanit monitor app to be sure he was truly sleeping and praying that he was okay. I thought, “how could he be after all of that crying???” I know I wouldn’t be, but maybe my baby boy is much stronger than me. I certainly hope he is. My husband and I watched for 10 mins until we saw his hand and then foot shift as he got comfortable in his slumber. AN HOUR AND FORTY-TWO MINUTES OF HYSTERICS! I don’t know how I made it through.

Night 3. Could I call it a charm?? Well, he woke up around the same time as the previous night (2:33 am) and the crying fluctuated up and down a rollercoaster. Sometimes it would stop completely and then it seemed like he would remember he was still alone in there and not sleeping and the shrieking would skyrocket again. Finally, he calmed and dozed off around 3:30 am, a little under an hour later. I think I did much better that night though he woke again at 3:50 to turn around in his crib, grab his pacifier and then inevitably 8 mins later the fussing began. I tried to let him work it out for a few extra minutes before I did a pop-in at 4:05 am. It proved to be effective because his fussing gently dwindled and he was asleep again by 4:07 am. Job well done Mama :-)

Now in hindsight, a giant leap occurred on Night 5 and he slept for over 10 hours. However, Night 6 threw us a slight curve ball with another wee hour awakening. There was some tug-o-war action where he would fall sleep for a few mins then wake & fuss. This went on from about 4:30 am until around 5:30 when he finally felt reassured to sleep through the remainder of the night…well the rest of the morning, and we were up and at em at about 7 am to embark on our beautiful day. It was quite wonderful to see that by that next day his naps really just followed a domino effect. Happy nappies now last for anywhere from 1.5-2.5 hours without all of the extra theatrics beforehand. I just lay him down, letting him know its time for a nap, leave his room and allow him to take the wheel. Sometimes he stays up for a little while, talking and rolling around, but once he’s ready he softly slips into dreamland and even during the in between time I can go about my business, getting whatever I need to get done. It’s truly fantastic! To feel like a human again, somewhat well-rested and incredibly joy-filled. I’m not as testy or on edge and I’m even getting a bit of quality time with my husband again. In the thick of our training days, I could feel my frustrations toward him boiling. The morning after Night 3, we were heading out to our niece’s soccer game and I’m over here getting the baby ready while frantically getting myself dressed, making the bottles, packing the lawn chair into the trunk, putting the baby into the car, grabbing the stroller’s rain cover. Then I get into the car expecting Jimmy to pick up some of the slack and as he gets in with the baby bag I ask, “where’s his blanket?” He’s like “ummm I don’t know. I didn’t bring it” and just sits there looking at me. So of course I get back out of the car to go inside and grab it. I’m just like UGHHH, DO I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING?!?!

Flash forward to the day after Night 6, we flipped a 180. As we enthusiastically commented while watching one of the contestants perform on my favorite show while eating dinner together, Jimmy mentioned how much he loved duets. I didn't know that… and it’s kind of exciting and refreshing to learn new things about him. He told me that one of his favorites was No Me Ames by JLo and Marc Anthony. I hadn’t heard that one before and as he pulled it up on YouTube to play it for me, he looked over and charmingly asked if I’d like to dance. I gladly stood up with him and basked in his warm embrace as we slow danced in the living room together. We’ve been hopping back in as a dynamic duo and cutting a rug much more often these days (check out some of our latest jigs on IG + TikTok). I think it’s healing our marriage in addition to our much needed weekly couples therapy sessions. Now if we could just get back to traveling the world and going on adventures together again, we could fall in love all over again. I know I know, one step at a time Deja. I have to remind myself to pump the breaks on fantasizing about the future and continue to practice indulging in the present with enormous gratitude. We are doing pretty well presently and this feels good. I’m not expecting to have the picture perfect marriage nor am I expecting that one week of TCB training will be the ultimate remedy eliminating any signs of struggle drifting off into a fantasy of sensational sleep forevermore. That’s just not realistic. But I WILL bask in these current exhilarating wins. I deserve to celebrate the present, I’m accepting and archiving the past and the future…well its coming but I don’t need to worry about it right now.