Possible Sleep Training Method?

odesa11

Hi All,

This is my first post.  What prompted me to write was that I want to share a promising (tho not yet proven) method we have tried to get our DD to sleep through the night.  We have been having a terrible time getting our 6 month old daughter to sleep through the night.  Heck, we were really just aiming low and hoping for 4 hour stretches.  Nothing we tried worked.  We tried CIO but that would end in my DD hyperventilating and me going out of my mind.  We tried coming to her after a period of 5, 10, 15 min of crying and that did absolutely nothing.  Our DD would still wake up every 1-2 hours all night long.  For reference, we would put her down between 6:30 and 7 pm and she would be up for the day on her own around 6:30 or 7 am the following day.

At the last pedi appointment, the doctor suggested doing something I honestly never heard of before.  She said to put DD to bed for the night around 11 pm and get her to stop feeding at night.   The goal would be to have her sleep 5 uninterrupted hours.  After a few days, we were to move her bedtime to 10 pm and repeat, moving her bedtime earlier and earlier until we find a time that works best. 

 I was EXTREMELY skeptical.  The idea of putting a little baby to bed so late sounded like a form of torture for the child.  But we were desperate.  We tried it a few nights ago but adjusted the schedule somewhat.  We put DD to bed for the night at 9:30.  That night, she slept from 9:30 pm to 4 am without crying.  Maybe she woke during the night but we definitely slept through it and she managed just fine on her own.  She ate at 4 am and went back down from 4:30 am until 7:30 am.  It was a HUGE success.  A similar story happened again the following two nights.  My husband and I are elated because we have not slept so long in recent memory.  Tonight we will be moving her bedtime to 8pm to see what happens.

I don't know if it will keep working but I really wanted to share one promising alternative that felt really pain free for mom and baby to implement.  Good luck!!