Sleep Training... Again!

So a little while ago I posted about our sleep training events. Well, I quit after that night and waited until I talked to a friend of mine who has done sleep training with her daughter and was successful at it.

She came over last wednesday and gave me a book called "Sleeping through the night" by Jodi A. Mindell, Ph. D.. It was a very helpful book on sleep training and had much more information than the websites I was reading. It said to make bedtime the same time every night and do the bedtime routine the exact same way. Also, it said to go in and check on the baby as many times as you want, whenever you want but to try and resist the urge to pick him up. It went through what it called the "Basic Bedtime Method" which we followed. It went into detail about each step but the jist of it is the following:

step one: set bedtime -set bedtime for baby to go to bed. this is important to help set your baby's internal clock so that his body is accustomed to falling asleep at exactly the same time every day

step two: bedtime routine -babies relish routine. routine is essential to your child's being able to fall asleep easily and quickly. end of routine should be done in child's room.

step three: bedroom environment- establish a consistent bedroom environment so that when he wakes up in the middle of the night, the same thing is going on. positive sleep associations and negative sleep associations are big for this one. positive sleep associations are things that will always be there, negative are things that when he wakes up, they won't be there but were there when he fell asleep. (example: i play music on a cd player in his room of soft lullabies. i put it on repeat so that it is a positive association and will still be playing if he wakes up in the middle of the night. a negative association would be something like rocking a baby to sleep, etc.) make sure your child's bedroom is the same all the time when he is sleeping

step four: put down awake- this teaches them to soothe themselves and learn how to fall asleep on his own. "he will probably call for you, cry, or scream. Most likely he will do all three at once. Wait. then do a simple checking routine. Go back into your child's room. Tell him that it is okay. Tell him again that it is time for him to go to sleep. Pat him or touch him briefly if you wish. don't pick him up. don't cuddle him. be gentle but firm. remain fairly neutral and stay for a brief time, no more than one minute." make the visit boring.

Night one: we did our bedtime routine- bath, bottle, a story from his jesus storybook bible (love!), goodnight moon, and then cuddle time while singing jesus loves me. I rock him a little while we have cuddle time and have his music playing in the background. i enjoy just rocking him and getting him drowsy before putting him in his crib. I then laid him down (drowsy but awake) and of course the screaming began. The first night was rough. I cried and cried, and nick was the one that kept going in to calm him down. I kept going back and forth whether or not this was worth it, whether i was doing the right thing, whether i should just go get him and wait until he was older. but i stuck with it. eventually after an hour and a half he fell asleep. (i said if it last longer than two hours i was done). He woke back up at 12:30 and i fed him and let him sleep with us so he only spent 2 1/2 hours in there but when you compare it to 0 seconds in the crib, it's a step. And that's another reason I love the book so much because it has a section on "what to do if your child wakes during the night" and it said to do what you normally do. "if you usually take her to your bed, then do that. research has found that once a baby is falling asleep quickly and easily at bedtime, then she'll naturally start sleeping through the night in about two weeks."

Night one was on thursday night, and unfortunately friday night we were out really late at my mother in laws house. i attempted it but felt bad for trying to get him to sleep on his own since it wasn't the normal time and we really didn't even do much of the bedtime routine so i ended up just putting him in the bed with us.

Night one (again, since we screwed it up friday night and started over saturday night): Bedtime routine, laid him down, and he cried for about an hour with us going back in and calming him down. he eventually fell asleep while i was in there calming him down. i just laid my hand on his stomach and put some gentle pressure on it because i think he had some gas, and he fell asleep while i was in there (we try to get in and out in under 1 minute so that shows you how fast he fell asleep). he slept until 1, i fed him and then laid him back down in his crib since he was not very awake after eating his bottle and he fell right to sleep in his crib. he woke again at 3 crying and i knew he wasn't hungry so i tried to see if he would put him self back to sleep and waited 10 minutes. he didn't so i brought him back in the bed with us where he slept until 7:30.

night two: bedtime routine, laid him down and he cried for only 20 minutes. but it wasn't the really upset crying like it was the past nights. he would have periods of calm during crying this time where i could tell he was starting to soothe himself by staring at his hands and playing with his "lovey" (a small little blanket with a little bear head on it that we give him while he sleeps so that he associates that with sleep... another recommendation from the book). 30 minutes after i put him down, he was asleep and i only had to go in and comfort him 2 times, and then once more after he had fallen asleep but woke up screaming, yet again i think from gas. he quickly went right back to sleep though. we are still on night two tonight so i don't know how the night will go but my main concern is falling asleep in his crib.

Overall, I am very impressed and happy with the outcome. I do not mind him coming back into our room during the night and still waking up for a feeding because he is still on the small side for his age and he is still not eating as much as he should be for his age during the day so I want him to eat as much as he can and i enjoy having him in there and waking up to him in the mornings. i just really needed him to start going to sleep at a decent time and having some time for myself and my husband without having to hold a sleeping baby until we decide to go to sleep in our room.

The book also has a section on "nap training" but recommends waiting two weeks after beginning the sleep training at night before moving on to nap training so we will be waiting a little bit to do that. i'm looking forward to the day where i can lay kayden down in his crib for naps and making use of that time too!

This whole process i know will make kayden a much happier and well rested baby, which is what i had to keep telling myself through the hour long crying and screaming the other night. I did tell myself that if it was still taking an hour by night three and he was still screaming, i would quit. but he has calmed down by night two so we will be continuing the sleep training. I was concerned about Kayden getting the rest that he needed because i felt like he wasn't getting the sleep he needed in our room, and being able to put yourself to sleep is something that everyone needs to know how to do. the book said it best when it said "you have to teach a baby how to crawl and walk, sleeping is no different." while i am not a supporter of the "cry it out" method. i do support letting him cry for a little bit (i never went longer than 5 minutes) and calming him down and reassuring him that we were still here and that he is alright. He needed to learn how to soothe himself, and I think he is starting to get the hang of it.

It wasn't easy, and I cried a long with him, and prayed that God would make it easier quickly because I wasn't sure how long I could handle the crying. I also prayed constantly that if I was doing something wrong, then God would make it clear quickly that I was not doing the right thing. But after night two of sleep training, and making night two much easier than the first night, I think we are going in the right direction.

However, I would have started sleep training the week he is suppose to get his 4 months shots. Night three may be interesting. I'm dreading the 4 months shots tomorrow, but I am really excited to talk to the pediatrician about the improvement in Kayden's neck, see how much he has grown, and just overall ask the pediatrician some questions that I've had. Update will come :)