Remember that super optimistic post I wrote about Oliver’s sleep schedule only a few months ago? Well, what goes up, must come down.

Boy, where to even start.

It all started when we got back from vacation. He had been sleeping so well before that, so we already had the plan to put him in his own room when we got back. We totally failed to see how vacation had changed everything, and did not adjust our plans accordingly.

As vacation had worn on, he was crying more and more and having more and more trouble going to sleep. So when we got back and I confidently put him in the crib, he just sobbed and sobbed. All of my enthusiasm and back-patting for how easy things were going to be went right out the window. We tried letting him cry, but that got us nowhere. He sobbed and sobbed and never stopped.

Now the plan was to put Evie and Oliver in the same room, but it wouldn’t really be fair to dump this problem off onto her. So Evie started sleeping in our room, and I started sleeping in her bed in Oliver’s room (with earplugs to get through all the nightly crying!) Every night he would just wake up sobbing and sobbing, and just unable to go back to sleep.

After a week or so, I took a breath and said, “Wait a minute, let’s reset.” I thought about where we were before vacation, and how to get back there, or what I did in the first place to get to the point where I could leave and he would just go to sleep. So we started over. Eventually, we got to the point where I stayed in the room, but I just sat on the floor until he went to sleep. He didn’t cry, just went to sleep. So we were at least back to square 1.

So this seemed like progress, until we had a really bad night, where he just wouldn’t stop crying. Eventually, Sara had to come in and sleep with him. This was very discouraging for me. He ended up being sick, so I think maybe he just wasn’t feeling that well that night.

The following night, miracle beyond miracles, he slept through the whole night!

So it seemed like we had finally made a break through. However, I think that was the last time he slept through the night. Every night after that was a little bit worse. And even worse than that, Evie had been sleeping in the bed with Sara for about 2 weeks at point, and she was losing the ability to sleep by herself, always wanting company. So not only were we not solving Oliver’s sleep problems, but now we were creating sleep problems in Evie. I certainly didn’t want to get Oliver sleeping in his bed, only to end up with Evie in ours instead.

I had resorted to sleeping on the floor, since the creakiest bed in the world would wake him up whenever I climbed into bed, or shifted in the night. I was really on pins and needles in there, trying not to wake him up, since it could bring on an hour long sob-fest. The floor seemed like the lesser of two evils.

So finally we decided to put Evie in the bed in there, with me continuing to sleep on the floor. Best case scenario, her presence would help him sleep, worst case, we wouldn’t be any worse off with Oliver, but at least we could try to keep Evie from getting used to sleeping in our bed. Unfortunately, it ended up being the later case.

Furthermore, a new problem started to develop. Having Oliver and I in the room with her was too exciting for Evie. So she started to revert to her customary awake time of 5 a.m., which would of course wake Oliver up. So we eventually fell into a sort of rhythm of the 3 of us sleeping in there, with me on the floor. Oliver would wake up 1 or 2 times a night, and Evie would wake up 1 or 2 times a night, finally culminating in a 5 a.m. wake up. Weeks went by.

Finally it just became obvious that, at almost 6 weeks, things were not going to improve. I started beginning the night in my bed until the first time Oliver woke up, and then sleeping on the floor after that, but even still the whole thing was taking a toll. I was so exhausted from waking up so often and so early, and so sore from sleeping on the floor, that I was really starting to get frustrated.

Even the things that had been working were starting to erode. It was obvious that my presence in the room was keeping him awake, and yet, if I tried to go out, he would get so upset. Some nights I would resolve myself to let him cry until he went to sleep, but after literally more than an hour, I couldn’t take it anymore. At that point, he was usually so exhausted, that all I would have to say was, “Oliver, lay down.” and he would go to sleep. But it was like I had to do that, or else he would never be able to go to sleep by himself, no matter how long it went. He just was not able to calm himself down or go to sleep without at least *something* from me.

The final straw for me was one night when he had been sobbing for going on 45 minutes or so and Evie started sobbing herself saying, “I’m tired but I can’t go to sleep when Oliver is crying!” I felt so bad about that. I had always been very sensitive about not putting any of this on Evie. She mothers him so much as it is, and I felt like it was shifting the burden from the parents, where it belonged, to her shoulders. That didn’t seem right. One night she even tried sleeping on the floor, to comfort him that da da was there. It was sweet, but made me feel bad.

So we’re taking a break. 6 weeks is too long for the house to go without sleep. Oliver and I need a break from each other, so Sara is taking over as Sleepmaster General. Oliver is back in the travel crib in our room. If he howls all night long (and believe me, so far he has…Sara hasn’t had any more success than I did), at least Evie can get some sleep (although she still complains that his crying from the other room keeps her up). There have been some ups and downs (one night I was sleeping until Oliver decided to try and bite a significant chunk out of my back, for no reason… unpleasant way to wake up, let me tell you!), and we’re not exactly sure where to go from here. All we know is that whatever we were doing before wasn’t working.

And to think I was SO SURE it was going to be so easy this time around!