How I managed sleep training

Sleep training is the task of getting a baby to sleep by himself without the aid of being rocked or nursed to sleep. It also is supposed to help babies put themselves back to sleep when/ if they wake up in the middle of the night.

So I have put off sleep training for a while for several reasons.

A. I just don't know if I could handle hearing Max cry so much when I know I can help him
B. I just got him to be able to even fall asleep at all for naps and am not eager to start a new training.
C. I am worried it won't work at all, and I'll just be letting Max cry and getting zero sleep myself in the process with no end., Max is a very stubborn baby and takes a long time to get used to new things.
D. I kind of love putting Max to sleep in my arms. There seriously are no words to describe how wonderful it is watching your baby drift off to sleep and rocking him to sleep. I know I won't get this opportunity for much longer, the bigger he gets.

Those are the reasons I don't wanna do it. The reasons I finally decided to start doing it are.

A. I want Max to learn to be able to sleep on his own, because it's a skill he needs.
B. I would like to be able to go out at night and leave Max with a baby sitter who can get him to bed.
C. I am pretty exhausted and really need to start getting more than 4 or 5 broken up hours of sleep every night.
D. These barely there naps are starting to wear on me, I don't want to dread nap time.
E. He is 5 months old and I think he is getting a bit old to still have all these sleep wakings.

For those of you who don't know, there are basically 2 trains of thought when it comes to sleep training a baby. There is age old Cry It Out method, mostly taken from Ferber http://www.babycenter.com/0_the-ferber-method-demystified_7755.bc which really just means you put your baby to bed awake, leave and let them cry, some time later go back and try and soothe without picking up, and then leave again, repeat until baby falls asleep. And then there is the No Cry Solution by Elizabeth Pantley,  http://www.pantley.com/elizabeth/index.html. Mostly that one involves a lot of charting and a very slow and gentle transition into self sleeping. Both of those methods are proven to work and many families swear by them, but I decided I could not handle the strait out cry it out, and that No Cry Sleep Solution  method would take way too long and commit me to way more time than I have. So I chose and in between method. It's called the Pick up/ Put down method by Tracey Hogg in the book, the Baby Whisperer.   http://community.babycentre.co.uk/post/a12117065/pick_up_put_down_-_the_method  Now normally I am not a huge fan of baby books and "this is the way a baby should be raised" kind of thing. I think every baby and family is different so there is no possible way one set of guidelines will work for everyone. That being said, I needed a sleep training option and decided to go with this one. To explain it in a short way, you do a wind down routine, such as a diaper change and a book, then lights out in the room, and gently put baby in crib. ( I do diaper change, read a book, then lights out, sound machine on and put baby down)When he starts to cry, try and get him to settle by placing a hand on his back ( or belly, whichever way he sleeps) and talk to him softly. When he doesn't stop crying, pick him up and comfort him until he does stop crying. Then immediately put him back in he crib. Continue as needed. I kind of amended this a little as instead of a hand on his back I pat his bottom. Supposedly, it could take up to an hour and about 100 pick ups to begin with, but every time is supposed to be shorter and quicker. So here is my experience with the whole thing .I have given myself 3 days of doing this at every sleep time and will then evaluate if it has worked.

For back ground info, my previous ways of getting Max to sleep were either letting him fall asleep while nursing, cradling him a swaddle and pretty much dancing around, or holding him upwards against my body and bouncing and walking around.


Day one, Thursday Jan 3.
We started with the morning nap, this nap is usually the easiest to get him down for, but only lasts about 45 minutes. The PU/PD method of crying took about 20 pick ups and 20 minutes of me talking to him with my hand on his back for him to fall asleep. All in all, better than I expected. Nap only lasted 34 minutes. Tried a few times to PU/PD again, but he was wide awake.
Second nap of the day, this nap is usually impossible to get him to lay in his crib for. About 15 pick ups, quite a bit more screaming this time, and took longer to get him to calm down when I picked him up, and settled after about 10 minutes, but was almost asleep twice, then woke himself up and started crying. But overall only about a 20 minute process again. So far, feeling good. Ok, about 40 minutes into the nap, he woke up crying ( which is pretty common for him to do) took about 30 minutes of PU/PD for him to go back to sleep... That part has been the most frustrating so far because I wasn't sure if it was even worth it. Only slept about 25 minutes after that.
Third nap of the day, not sure if he was just really tired or what but for real it only took, 1 pick up, and some pats on his bottom and he was out. I think it's also worth mentioning that I put him down with no clothes on, just a diaper. He hates wearing clothes anyway, so I thought I would give it a try. And wow, seriously 5 minutes and he was out! He slept for about an hour and a half before I woke him up because it was running close to bead time and we were still trying to get back over jet lag.
Alright so night time, Wow I was feeling pretty positive going into this, since the last nap went so well, but it was terrible! After an hour and a half of it, I caved. I know, but in my defense, I accidentally scratched Max's face with my wedding ring when I picked him up the last time and it was terrible! Anyway, I fed him until he went to sleep. At the start it was going good, mostly just fussing, and not any big cries. So many times he was about to be sleep, when he would wake himself back up. But we kept at it, when it hit the hour mark, Max just started to scream and not stop! I have no idea why the naps went decently well and the night awful. My only guess is that our night time routine had been pretty set from day one, but nap time was always all over the place, so it wasn't a huge deal when we changed it. Idk, guess I'll try again tomorrow...during the night he woke up 3 times, I nursed him and put him right back down.

Day 2
Morning nap. Went pretty good considering last nights terribleness. Only about 5 pick ups and 15 minutes total and he was out. Lasted 50 minutes.
Afternoon nap. 2 pick ups, and 10 minutes total. Oh, I did also put him down with just a diaper on too.lasted hour and a half.
Nap 3, again just in his diaper. Took 4 pickups, and about 10 minutes. Lasted 11/2 hrs.
Bedtime fail again. Tried for over an hour, and same thing, about 5 times he was so close to falling asleep, then bam! Screaming! Sigh... I know I'm failing too.. But it starts out so promising and just gets worse and worse...I'm starting to fade and I may just nurse him to bed, I actually like it, and now that I know he is capable of putting himself to sleep... Idk well see. He woke up every 2 hours that night like clockwork because he was rammed into the side of the crib...And yes I nurses him back to sleep....

Day 3
As with most things Max, I am thoroughly confused. Morning nap today I laid him down and left the room this time. He cried and fussed for a few minutes. I went back in, patted his but for maybe 30 seconds and he was asleep. So no pick ups and not even 5 minutes...slept 50 minutes.
Second nap, we were out and about so he fell asleep in the car. Positively, he fell asleep without any crying first and stayed asleep for an hour while Jeff and I got some things done. Third nap, 3 pick ups and about 20 minutes total. Was asleep for hour and forty five minutes.
Finally a night time success! Thought I'd change it up a little, so after the normal bedtime routine, I nursed him with the the lights out and he sounds machine on and then rocked/ walked him until he was calm but not asleep. I laid him down in his crib and patted hit bottom for a minute or so. He was, of course, crying so I left the room for about 5 minutes. When I can back he was screaming pretty good, so I picked him up and calmed him then set him back. He started crying again an I patted his butt for about a minute and he was asleep! Maybe I adapted a little but of the cry it out method into it recently which seem to help, but I still allow myself to pick him up if he is right out screaming, because I just can't take that. And maybe I am accidentally teaching him to go to sleep with his bottom being patted. But really I don't mind that for now. I think I will slowly start to leave the room more and see how it goes. Here's hoping that it will work out soon, but I do think he has gotten so much better in just the three days! He can now take naps in his crib and even fall asleep without nursing or being walked! Huge achievements for us. The next big thing is to see of he can last longer at night. I suppose I will have to start doing this same thing when he wakes up at night, but that's way tough because I am so exhausted. I'm hoping he will just stop waking up if he know how to put himself back to sleep....

Well I think I am going to continue this blog for my own sake of seeing progress in this sleep training, but feel free to stop reading the small details and just skip to the end to find out what the final result was, I'm giving it 4 more days. To get a complete evaluation:)

So after a few more days, I think it is time to end this blog with my evaluation. I started to leave the room when I set him down and then come back a few minutes later to pat his bottom if he was still fussing. If he didn't settle in a few minutes, I left again for a few minutes and then came back to pat again. Mostly he has settled and gone to sleep after the second time I come in and pat his bottom. To me this is a huge success. Also just now, Max fell asleep for the first time completely on his own! I left the room, and he fussed for a few minutes and then was asleep without me having to do anything! Plus last night when he was up for a feeding, he usually just falls asleep right after the feed. but he wouldn't this time. So I laid him down and he was sleep, just like that! So I am VERY pleased with the way this sleep training worked out. I think it worked for me because
1. I didn't have to adapt to a strict guideline of rules
2. I allowed myself to pick him up and comfort him when he was screaming
3. I slowly eased him into self sleep, so it wasn't a huge scare for him and it only took about a week
4. It allowed me to follow my so called mothers instinct and go with the flow.

Yes, Max still wakes up at night, but I have been able to get him back to sleep a few times without feeding him, just by patting or rubbing his back, but if it doesn't work, I still feed him. Last night he slept 7 hours without eating! I mean he woke up once and I had to rub his back a little but that was it:)
So success for us! I realize I will probably have to continue this and will have some more rough nights, but anything is better than it was. Also I will admit that I have no idea if this would work for every baby (as I have only had the one:) and I am sure every baby would react differently. I just wanted to blog about it and share with any other mothers out there. Although it would have been nice to have Max sleep better earlier, I am glad I didn't try this any earlier because I know he would not have reacted as well. For me and Max, we started at just the right time, where I thought he was mature enough to learn the new art of sleeping.
-A special note to mothers out there struggling with lack of sleeping babies.-Do what you have to do. Don't let someone tell you there is a problem with your baby's sleep if you don't think there is. You know your baby, and what he/she can handle, also what you can handle.


Comments

  1. Yay Sis - I'm so glad Max is sleeping better!! I used a combo of Baby Whisperer/Babywise and yeah, while's so hard to hear your baby cry, I do think that it really helps your baby learn how to self-soothe. Yay for both of you starting to get better sleep!

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  2. How wonderful..I cried when you said he slept for 7 hours. I am so happy you found your method. You are a great mother! and perfect for Maximus!

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