We were desperate for our baby's sleep and our own that we resorted to sleep teaching/training/crying it out. It seemed all of the parents we talked to said this is what you had to do. We needed to do something. I said to myself that I couldn't have more kids if i'd have to sleep teach them, I hated it that much. Seriously, I think I even posted here that I'd rather give birth again. Hearing your baby cry is the worst. As mothers, I suppose (my husband could handle it much better than me). You just have this biological tick and it eats away at you. I hated it. But I have to say we have an especially stubborn baby. Parents on the local listserve are like 'oh my baby cried 20 mins the first night, 10 the second and 3 the next and done.' Ha! Not mine (and I know bc I kept a log). He cried some for about 12 days (my log is 17 days!). 12 days of agony. But it did work. He did get the hang of sleep and became a good sleeper. Until we traveled, then it all goes to shit. Luckily, you (usually) don't start at square one bc they remember how to soothe and sleep a bit.
Now remember back to that second log I took of my kid's shitty sleep, well it had some value. I was able to see a pattern of when he typically woke to be fed or soothed which helped in the sleep training. According to the school we used, you'd go in 1 hour before he typically started to cry to try to get to him before he cried and hopefully avert the crying.
There was one fateful night where I woke up to feed him (yes I set my alarm for 3 different times to wake in the night) and I peed. While peeing he woke up. And so it goes, you can't go in to him when he cries or it sends mixed signals. So I had to wait til he stopped crying...pretty sure it was an hour and 40 mins. I am sad to even admit that here. that we let him cry that long. who ever is reading this, please note how desperate we were. our baby would not sleep, for anything. It was effecting our parenting, our marriage, our baby, our life.
Sleep Teaching started on the first of the month.
We logged:
Bed time
1st check in to try to calm
2nd check in to try to calm
Etc
(note we stopped going into calm him at some point bc it just made him that much more upset that it wasn't me and my husband wouldn't pick him up, we felt it was making it worse)
Total time cried til sleep
Wake up time and the time he cried to fell back asleep
Times went in to Dream feed
We kept a similar log with daily naps (every 2 hours at his age).
For memory's sake, the first night he cried 46 mins before falling asleep. He woke 3 times in the night.
2nd night he cried 40 mins. 3rd night, he fell right asleep. We also did naps at the same time, as the book recommended. Sometimes this was harder bc it was the middle of the day.
In the heart of the training you're supposed to do it in 12 hour chunks for night sleep and 1 hour for naps. Any time they wake in this chunk, they need to soothe and go back to sleep. This was the worst part. My baby sleeps 35-40 min naps. And he sleeps 10.5 hour sleep cycles. May be this is bc I am wuss and go and get my baby and should just let him cry but after the heart of the training where he was getting so much more sleep, I didn't think it was worth it. And that made me feel much better.
Wishing all babies happy, long nights of sweet sleep. And their parents too.
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