Our sleep coach is fired!!

I bet Kyle's pretty proud of himself. He's not only outsmarted his parents but a sleep coach as well! After working with this coach for over 2 months, we've decided to call it quits and get our refund. We are beyond frustrated. We've been sleep training Kyle since he was between 3 and 4 months old. After six months, many books, a sleep coach and consistent dedication to the effort ... we aren't too sure just how much we've improved our situation. We've had many ups and periods of time where we thought we'd finally made progress only to return right back to where we had started. At best, Kyle was sleeping 12 hours a night and waking up only once, very briefly after about 10 hours. He'd nap for 1.5 or 2 hours twice a day. This was AMAZING! And it lasted a little over a week. Our worst consists of him waking up every hour or two hours during the night and wanting to start his day at 5am with two 29 minute naps sprinkled throughout the day. We are currently in that "worst" category. You can add to it that he practically refuses to go down for a nap and after crying it out for however long, only sleeps 29 minutes! Other than crying when he wakes (a sign he's not rested), he is pleasant and energetic and seemingly lacks any need for sleep!

It hurt my pride to have to even hire this lady. I mean, how hard could it really be? I had read many books and had found a great one called, "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child," and had implemented "the plan" right away. This was back in early November!! It worked for almost a couple of weeks and then it all went south. I have no idea why. Perhaps I wasn't as consistent in the middle of the night and Kyle caught on. He is a smart one when it comes to any inconsistency. After giving it our best effort for over 3 months, we finally caved in and called for help. We were both sure this lady had met her match. She laughed it off, saying that she guaranteed her system and would refund us completely if it didn't work. Throughout these 2 months, she commented over and over what a stubborn one we had. She said he was "one for the books" and was absolutely "unbelievable." Turns out she did meet her match. We tried to fire her a month ago, but she offered to continue working with us for however long it took and we thought we'd give it just one more shot. Another month passed with no progress and no "new tricks" and we decided to call it quits. This time for real. We are grateful for the few things we learned and for how this whole process actually encouraged us as parents. It turns out Ru and I aren't idiots and that we really did do all we could and we clearly have a unique situation and a stubborn son. Fortunately, we've yet to see this stubborn side to Kyle during the day. He doesn't yet cry when we take away a toy or refuse to allow him to play with something dangerous. He's really mellow and clearly loves being awake!

We stopped talking about K's sleep issues in our circle of friends many, many months ago because although well-meaning, they consistently offered the same basic advice we'd tried, read about, tried again, read more about, tried again and read even more about. I don't understand it. It's like these people must really think we like living this way? Otherwise, wouldn't it be safe to assume we would do ANYTHING to solve the problem? And that we'd have the brains to research solutions? I mean, I haven't slept well for over 9 months... do people really think that's acceptable to me? These sleep conversations reminded me of ones I'd had about my morning sickness. Folks, let me tell you... if you felt like vomiting for 24 hours straight, every day of the week... and you knew this would last for months, don't you think you'd try anything to get relief??? So after 3 months of this torture, I'd get several suggestions a day about trying ginger, putting crackers by my bed, and wearing sea-bands. It got to be comical and I could only laugh it off. It was either that or cry.

So, this is a similar struggle. One we have worked VERY hard at fixing and if the 18 years of experience our sleep coach had wasn't enough to solve this, you can bet we've CONSISTENTLY tried EVERYTHING and we've got ourselves a tough case to crack. Rudy and I aren't giving up though. We refuse to accept that I won't be sleeping for however many more months.

Kyle, it's you versus your parents and let me tell you... we're gonna win!!! Surrender, my son. Just give it up. And SLEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!