UPDATE: Grieving & Exhausted. TW: Child Loss

[hmf]

Original Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/sleeptrain/s/0bF3iwcsgL

Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for their kind words and advice. The sleep training worked great and dh and I are finally getting a full night’s sleep. I had to adjust some advice to what I’m able to do currently but basically did a type of extinction. We started with an afternoon nap. I put her down and dropped to the floor and army crawled out of sight. She had a little moan and I left her until she seemed quite heartbroken. Gave her a cuddle and did the same put down and army crawl. This time she had a little moan and went to sleep. That all took around 30 mins. That night I put her down tired and after 20 mins of chatter and moaning she went to sleep on her own. Almost a week later (I think. I’m losing track of days), I put her down for a nap and for bed and she doesn’t cry. Just chatters until she sleeps. It’s a whole new world.

Wednesday was our gorgeous’s boy’s day (I can’t bring myself to say the F word). We asked that everyone wear their favourite colour or his or their football team strip, as he wouldn’t want to see a sea of black and neither do we. That doesn’t represent our boy. We were absolutely overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support from people who came from all over to celebrate his life. It was the second worst day of our lives but the love we felt helped us through. Today, we brought him home and tonight I have him wrapped in his favorite dressing gown so I can hug him while I watch tv. I’ve waited so long to be able to hold him again.

 

[marypcma]

@hmf I actually created a Reddit account just so I could comment on your previous thread on this and to urge you to try sleep training. We are doing so now for our LO and it is some kind of miracle.

I am so happy to read it’s going well for your family. I am also sharing your grief about your son’s day and smiling imagining the colours he would have loved. I hope you find joy in the little things even with this heavy cloud that will never go away. Someone used this cloud analogy to explain grief - that it hangs above us always, and sometimes we look up and acknowledge it, and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes it’s dark and stormy, and sometimes it’s just a little grey and gloomy. Sometimes the sun shines through it while other times it blocks out all sunlight. Forever there, but ever changing.

You sound like an amazing mom. Your children will be so proud to call you mama. And your LO, how clever she is to be sleep trained so quickly. What amazing potential.

Have a great day.

 

[hmf]

@marypcma Thank you for such a lovely reply and for taking the time and steps that meant you could. The cloud analogy is very fitting, I’ve never heard of it before. Sleep training has been going really well, thank goodness. She is going to bed at 7pm and sleeping until 6am consistently; even with a couple of naps in the day where I let her fall asleep on my chest when she needed an extra cuddle. She is very aware of my emotions, even at only 9 months. I started having a little cry while we were playing the other day, just tears, no sound. But she saw the sadness and crawled over to me and started crying herself. So when she needs a bit of an extra cuddle, I’m giving it to her.