Saturday, January 12, 2008

All by myself... ZZZZZ Part 2

After one year, one month and a week of sleeping on our bed, right smack between Umi and Abah night after night, Muhamad Mubarak is now putting himself to sleep all on his own in his own cot. That cot is supposed to also double up as a playpen but it has been grossly underused (currently it is a laundry hold-up area) as we do not believe in placing him there in the day and prefer to let him roam free.

It's not so much as kicking him out of our bed. It's more of getting him to learn to fall asleep on his own without me or his Abah next to him patting him to sleep or allowing him to breastfeed till he dozes off. We thought it was time to train him to sleep independently, to be able to put himself to sleep when he felt he was tired. We wanted to make sure he could do this before we ship him out to his own room hopefully by the middle of the year. (assuming by then we would have found the time to give the study a fresh coat of paint and hopefully get him a toddler sized bed)

It has been a week since he has slept in his own cot and since there has been no incidents whatsoever, I daresay we have successfully done it !! HE has done it! Bravo to my little prince for being so co-operative and making life such a breeze. The first night he kept whining to be taken out. With some distraction of his favourite books and finger games he was sleeping soundly.

The second night, he was still a little surprised when I placed him in his cot but he complied genially and didn't complain. The third night onwards, when his energy was all spent and he was sleepy, he pulled my hand to go with him into our room and pointed to his cot. I cannot describe the euphoria I felt when he did that. I guessed why it worked so well was because we were very gentle with him but firm, we kept assuring him we were nearby and that even though he was sleeping away from us both, we would be close enough should he needed us. We made it fun for him by playing games with him and tried not to make such a big deal out of it. (Even though it was a milestone for us!) But above and beyond that, whatever we did wouldn't have worked if Mubarak had been a cry-baby, fussy or the kind who is afraid of something new. This is probably the 20th million time I say this. But Syukur Alhamdulillah I have been blessed with such an easy to care for child. Hopefully the transition to his own room will be just as breezy

Next up.... potty training !!!!!! This one won't be so easy !!

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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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