Not sleeping again

Mommy did a very bad thing.

Somehow, in between the time we started sleep-training Swe-cha and now, we transitioned from getting him used to going to sleep on his own to getting him to sleep while being hugged by me. We didn't realize it until he started waking up again in the middle of the night a week or two ago and he wouldn't go back to sleep unless I hold him in my arms.

I started hugging him to sleep a while ago because he is always so energetic and bounces around when we get to the bed even though he is already showing signs of being sleepy. He would crawl around, climb over the pillows and try to reach the things we keep on the bedside table. I found that he would fall asleep almost immediately if I catch him and hold him so I started doing this more and more often.

Eventually, he started teething again, it's his canines coming out and they're taking their sweet time (sigh!). So I've taken to hugging Swe-cha a lot to comfort him when he's cranky and upset. So between hugging him to sleep because he's malikot and hugging him to sleep because he's uncomfortable,.. eek. I undid our earlier training.

We started sleep-training him again last Tuesday night. It hurts to see him tossing and turning and having a hard time getting back to sleep, but we know that this is for his own good. Since we co-sleep, it also makes my heart ache when Swe-cha would sob and climb over me and squeeze / force his way into my arms. When he does this, I just pretend to sleep so I could ignore him while still keeping an eye on him so he won't fall off the bed. Sometimes, I found myself wishing that I could sleep as deeply as hubby because he never seems to hear Swe-cha cry when he's sound asleep.

It took Swe-cha 1 hr to get back to sleep when he woke up last night at 3a, this is better than the 2 hrs it used to take last week. All day today, I was extra-conscious about letting him fall asleep on his own too and not letting him fall asleep in my arms. It took him 40 minutes to fall asleep for his morning nap (this, combined with him being awake for an hour last night, caused our schedule today to be super delayed - i.e. lunch was at 3pm!). And in the afternoon, he was so upset and cried so much that he threw up his milk. I changed his clothes, let him play a bit and then put him down to sleep again after half an hour and this time, he fell asleep almost immediately and without any fuss.

At bedtime, he fussed for another hour before finally falling asleep.