Sleepless nightzZzZzzz..

From the day he was born, Irfan has always had trouble settling down to sleep — or getting back to sleep when he'd been wakened. During confinement, he'd go to sleep after a minute or two of nursing, but he'd wake up 5 minutes after. This happened so frequently that I lost my patience (I'd always been a sleepyhead so the sleepless night didn't suit me well :-p) and thus started pumping my milk and took turn with my mum waking up in the middle of the night for his feeding. Yes, I know. I have a greaat mom! :-D

After confinement, it was easier during the time when I was still BFing him for I just had to get him out of the cot, selak (haha) and there goes the baby sucking quietly and his mama could go back to bed peacefully. But Irfan only nursed for 4 months, after that he just refused to direct BF and I wasn't consistent with my pumping session, so the milk flow significantly decreased and at one point, it just stopped. I was sad, very sad that I didn't get to BF him until he's at least 1 year old. For the next baby (IF we ever decide to have another one that is..hehe) I will InsyaAllah try my extra very-very best to BF her (I want a she-girl another time around kay :-p)

Anyway, back to Irfan. After he refused to direct BF, my night routine became more frustrating - getting up groggily, stumbling in the dark hall to go to the kitchen and make him milk and coming back to the room to feed him. All these had to be done real fast coz as soon as he woke up he'd be shrieking as if someone was beating the crap out of him. And his father would get mad with his shrieking and repeteadly told him to be quiet! As if he understands la kan. haha.. And while feeding him, I couldn't go back to sleep of course because there were too many stories circulating about babies choking on their milk when parents/babysitter left them drinking on their own, thus I had to monitor him closely during each feedings.

He usually woke up every 2 hours, so basically it was about 4-5 times of the milk session for me. Now, as he's grown older he still wakes up for night feeding but not as frequent as he used to. His father and I now take turn to attend to him during nighttime. Yess..I know, I have a grrreat husband! :-D

But you see, the not-so-great thing about it is that lately, whenever it's Mr. Hubby's turn to look after him he would be an angel and wakes up only once for night feeding. But when it comes to mine, he would wakes up at least, twice for feeding and countless of times just to play and be comforted or whatever it is that he wants from me. I'd usually just give up and took him out of the cot and put him in between us to sleep. AND he would immmediately go back to sleep when I do that.

He just refused to sleep on his own whenever it was his mama's turn to look after him. Mr. Hubby will always scold me for putting him in bed with us for he wants Irfan to be independant, but I just can't stand waking up countless of times just to entertain his nonsense.

Recently, I read about baby sleep training method in babycenter.com. We definitely can't use the cry-it-out method as - just like I said earlier - Irfan cries as if someone is beating the crap out of him so I can't risk neighbours hearing it and thinking us abusing our own son. :-D

We might be able to try out the no-tears method, but with Irfan you can never predict if it will work or not. But there's no harm in trying right. So I guess we'll try out the method on him soon. With hope that there'll be no more sleepless night after that for both of his parents.

Just be a good boy and co-operate with us kay Irfan.