I've Gone And Done It

So - I've gone and done it. After many months of sleepless nights, noisy attempts at controlled crying and parental presence method, of nursing to sleep and sleeping with little feet in my back..... i've applied to spend a week at Tresillian*. I've posted half a dozen times about Project SleepyTime, my hard fought battle to get my son to be able to self settle, to fall asleep and stay asleep, without needing me to drag my sorry, sleepy, scary-haired slef out of bed to help him. Well, its just not working. We had a 3 good weeks of sleep but i cant attribute it to anything i did - i tried every tip and trick in the book for two and half months with very little improvement and then one night Flynn just decided to sleep for 6 hours straight before waking up. He did that every night for 3, maybe 4 weeks and then he got a fever and a virus and our whole good sleep thing collapsed. I've tried everything over the last two and half weeks to get him back on track: we kept up with the music that had worked before but it had no effect this time; i patted and stroked and sshed and sung lullabies; we even put a nightlight on in his room, which has gained us maybe an extra hour or two of sleep.

But Sunday night was the last straw. Flynn didnt fall asleep ( and stay asleep ) until 11pm - Mick and i had been nursing and patting etc since 7pm - and woke at 1am.... and decided he wasnt going back to sleep til 6am. 5 hours he stayed awake. He wasnt crying the whole time, he just didnt want to go to sleep. He wanted to play and watch tv and snuggle. I took him for a 45 minute drive, towards the end of which he fell asleep. I got him out of the car carefully but as soon as his head touched his pillow - bam! Awake and crying. It was 4am in the morning and i'd had enough - i left him in his bed crying and went back to my own bed. My heart said i shouldnt leave him there crying, my head said maybe it was too cold, or he'd poke his arm through his cot bars and be uncomfy but my body was so exhausted that i fell asleep...and i didnt wake til 6am. And Flynn was still crying. I'd left my baby to cry for 2 straight hours while i slept. Thats when i decided pride be damned, we needed help.

I feel like i've given up, like the worst mum in the world. I feel like i've done something so drastically wrong that i cant get my baby to have healthy, happy sleep and now i've just thrown in the towel. Thrown my hands up and said " here, someone else, you deal with it ". I know in reality thats not how it is but thats what it feels like. Failure. Yuck.

So i've gotten a referral from my lovely health nurse, she helped me fill in and submit the forms. Now i just have to ring the facility on Friday and speak to a nurse to make arrangements ( i suppose ). I'm hoping i get in before i go back to work otherwise i'll have to delay returning to my job, which will mean a delay in finances - and the last thing i need on top of no sleep is to go broke. Wish me luck ladies...

* For international readers - or anyone who doesnt know - Tresillian is a baby and family health service. I'm hoping to spend a week at one of their sleep clinics, where they'll teach Flynn how to sleep again, and me how to help him.