My son doesn't sleep.

Jude has sleep issues.  Big time.

I've avoided doing any sort of sleep training this entire time for a few reasons.  For starters, I never believed that they were necessary.  To me, sleep training has always implied that this is purely for tired parents' sake and not in the child's best interest.  I'm now retracting my former thoughts on this.  Sure, I'd love a full nights sleep.  But to be honest, I'm so used to 6-7 night wakings (you read that right- and this is on a good night) that they don't bother me much anymore.  I guess my mommy adrenaline isn't 100% depleted.  I'm honestly worried about Jude.  It seems like he always has bags under his eyes and is so cranky at the end of the day, that he just isn't himself. 

First, a background.

In the very beginning, we started off with Jude in a bassinet next to our bed.  When he would wake, I would nurse him or change his diaper or attend to whatever need he had.  During the first four months or so, I never gave his multiple, often hourly, night wakings a second thought since that is what newborns do.  Once Jude outgrew the bassinet next to the bed, we decided we wanted to cosleep and have a family bed until he was a year.  I'm a fan of Dr. Sear's Attachment Parenting principles and thought this was ideal for us.  Being as I'm a fulltime working mom, I love that I can spend all my time with Jude when I'm not working by sleeping next to him.  The night wakings continued.  From four months on, all Jude really wanted when he woke up was to nurse himself back to sleep.  That's fine.  Bedsharing makes this very easy to do.  Once six months rolled around and he was still waking up about ten times a night, I decided that we would try Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution.  I was not willing to let my son Cry It Out, but this seemed like an answer I could definitely go with.  It was all about weaning a baby off the suck to sleep association, which Jude clearly has.  After a few weeks of doing this, the only improvement I've seen is that he doesn't fight initially going to sleep like he used to and will actually sleep for a three hour stretch in the beginning.  It was also around this time that we put Jude to sleep in his crib initially and then upon the first night waking after we go to bed, we bring him into bed with us.

Now we are at the present.  Jude is 8.5 months and he has now decided that naps aren't for him.  Daycare is lucky to get two twenty minute naps out of him.  He comes home cranky, tired, rubbing his eyes, and ready for bed at 6 pm.  I know this is all because Jude cannot self soothe when he wakes up for whatever reason.  The littlest noise in the world will startle him awake and he cannot get himself back to sleep without a breast or a pacifier.  I'm at my wits end.  I've heard things about Ferber and really mostly associated his methods with crying it out.  Someone who practices Attachment Parenting told me to pick up his book because it has really great information on baby sleep cycles and sleep in general and I can put other bits of his philosophy into action without resorting to cry it out.  So, this is where we are at.  Updates to follow.  If anyone has any advice, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE comments.

This parenting stuff sure is hard.