if you have tried sleep training

Re: if you have tried sleep training

• imimahoney

  September 2012

  We waited until 4 months, 2 weeks to try night time sleep training. Before we did Sleep Easy (basically ferber) he would scream at bedtime... it was ridiculous. 

  We chose 5, 10 and 15 minute check-ins but you can alter those to fit what you are comfortable with.

  Night 1: Down at 7, cried on and off for 12 minutes. We checked in at 5 minutes but that actually made him more mad. We chose to skip the 10 minute check-in and he was asleep by 12 minutes.

  Night 2: Fussed for 8 minutes. We did not check-n at all The Sleep Easy book says to slow down your check-ins in the baby appears to be falling asleep on his own.

  Night 3: Nothing.. no crying, no fussing at all. Went to bed entirely on his own.

  Now, he will fuss for a bit if he is overtired but we don't go in unless it is out of control screaming.  His quick response to Sleep Easy proved to me that he was ready for bedtime sleep training. 

  Naps are a totally different story. He screamed on and off for 45 minutes. Would start to fall asleep and then wake him self up. We decided to not nap train right now and see if his sleep patterns improve as he gets a bit older.

  I recommend either reading the Ferber book or Sleep Easy before you start sleep training. There is a lot of good information in there about sleep patterns and readiness which helped me decide when to start.

  GL! 

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• nunzchucks member

  September 2012

  We did Sleep Easy like PP. DD cried for 58 min, 39 min, and then 10 min in the first 3 days. The first night was very hard, but after 4 weeks, she goes to sleep like a pro! We had a little better luck with naps than PP, but they are still hit or miss for us. Nighttime is amazing now. Little to no fussing and asleep within 15 min. 

  I recommend actually buying the book. It is a quick read. They also don't recommend sleep training until 4 mo and 14 lbs.  

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• jeffsjayme

  September 2012

  I think 'sleep training' is a dumb phrase cause really, you're sleep training from day 1 as you let your LO sleep in a crib or a bassinett or a playpen or on you.  While being rocked.  Or held.  Or left alone.  You're training them for something.  But I know what people mean.

  For us, he slept in his crib since week 2.  So he's always been used to that.  At about 2 months (I think), we no longer rocked him to sleep.  Instead, we put him in the crib while he was still awake - drowsy, but awake.  Sometimes he'd start to cry, but we left him in there for no more than 5 minutes and as long as it wasn't "the sky is falling!" kind of cry.

  At 3 months, we let him cry at night before going into feed him.  Just whimpering or fussing wouldn't do.  It had to be a real cry before we'd go in.  Alot of times, he'd fall back asleep before getting to a real cry.

  At 4 months, we've started expecting him to sleep through the night.  So even when he cries, we just let him.  I do check on him occasionally, but he has yet to cry longer than 10 minutes before falling back asleep.  He did have a cold this past week and I threw all rules out the window - he wasn't eating well during the day, so when he woke up at night wanting to feed, I knew it was real.

  Just start on Ferber's method - you'd be surprised at how quickly it works.  I do think you'll get to the point where you're okay with him cry for more than 5 minutes, but you'll also get the point where its rare for him to cry for 5 minutes.  I think if you did 5 minutes always going in there, he won't really have enough time to recognize that this is sleepy time and fall back asleep.  I think you need to commit to at least a week of Ferber's instructions, then you'll have a completely different story.

   

   

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