Talk to me about Sleep Training!

JBDamonM · August 2013

Well, it looks as though this is on the horizon in my house

I was hoping that LO would naturally start STTN and getting it on her own, but it doesn't appear that's going to be the case. She's not a terrible sleeper by any stretch, the bigger issue is that she's all over the map.

She's very consistent with going down btwn 8:15 and 9. Challenge number 1: she nurses to sleep. My nursing days are limited. My supply is starting to dwindle - her weight gain has slowed and I'm already supplementing her daycare bottles.

She is also pretty consistent with waking up around 5:30, takes a boob and goes back to sleep (at which time I leave her in her rock n play because she's never in as deep a sleep and I know she'll be up within a couple hours).... Typically wakes up for the day around 7-7:30.

What happens between 9 and 5:30 is anyone's guess. This week she's been waking up every hour until 11:30 or so and then sleeping straight through. When she wakes up - I've attempted to leave her be- but she never puts herself back to sleep.

So I have decided when she hits 5 months at the end of this month - we need a structure in place. It's time to establish a more concrete bed time routine and try and get some consistency around here. The question of course; how the heck do I do it?!?!?

Suggestions? what worked for my SAIF ladies? Anyone have any reading they reccomend?

Ready, Set Go. Help a FTM out!

ELF4321 · August 2013

DD was a horrible sleeper. Horrible. Horrible. Like wouldn't nap unless being held and woke every hour or two all night long. Every night. [pause as I have PTSD type flashbacks here]

We did sleep training with her just after 5 months (we intro'd cereal about a week before we started, to try to get her more full before bed). She had also been demanding a bottle at least 3x during the night, so we had to wean her down from those.

We did Sleep Easy, slightly modified because I didn't like their instruction to not touch her during check-ins. I also read the Ferber book, but found Sleep Easy a lot simpler to digest and I liked their weaning plan for reducing her night feeds.

I started by weaning the earliest and latest bottle, and kept one MOTN feeding for the first couple of months, then weaned off the final feed around 7 or 8 months. I will be completely honest--- DD is stubborn. Most of my friends who did sleep training said their LOs passed out within the first hour on night 1, then by night 4 or 5 were sleeping great. Um, yeah, not so much for DD. The first few nights it took her almost 2 hours to fall asleep and she woke up several times on her own, in addition to the scheduled night feedings. The amount of time it took her to fall asleep gradually shortened over a long time, and it wasn't until probably 10 months or so that she was able to get to sleep within 10-15 minutes.

I still feel strongly that it was the best choice for us, because I already tried several of the "no cry" plans that supposedly work on younger babies and go absolutely nowhere with them. I'm not sharing my story to scare you, but just to show a worst-case possibility. Like I said, most of my friends had really good success fairly quickly with Ferber-type sleep training.

pb_bride · August 2013

We did Ferber, and I highly recommend reading the book before you start. The book is full of useful information about infant sleep patterns. You don't need to read the entire book, just the relevant chapters. I got mine out of the library.

I think once you break her habit of nursing to sleep - and teach her to fall asleep on her own, she'll learn to put herself back to sleep when she wakes up MOTN.

Is she still swaddled? We stop swaddling when we sleep train, so M can self-soothe by sucking his own hand/fingers.

ccam · August 2013

We Ferbered at about 4.5/5 months. We knew DS wasn't hungry during the night, but he couldn't put himself back to sleep. He needed to be fed and rocked back to sleep. As hard as the first few nights were, I really feel like we helped DS to learn how to sleep better. He went from waking every 1-2 hours to sleeping 10 hours straight! And those first few nights of real sleep were glorious

I highly recommend reading the book and then adapting it to your needs. You know your child best. Some people probably think we Ferbered too young but it only helped him. He has slept through the night since. It has given us all much better sleep.

Words of advice...make sure you're both on board completely; giving in only makes the crying really for nothing; and it will get better!! Good luck!

Dragonfly1226 · August 2013

We also Ferbered. I highly recommend reading the book before jumping in. If I was going to let DS cry I wanted to understand why it was necessary. He had some bad sleep associations we were trying to break. We always rocked him to sleep and he had no clue how to transition between sleep cycles on his own. For us it was the right decision 100%. He is an awesome sleeper now and everyone is happier for it. GL,

JBDamonM · August 2013

Thank you so much ladies. Ferber is the one I had been most interested in as well - I'm going to pick up the book from the library next week.

I think it is more about breaking habits (nuring and rocking to sleep ) than actually sleeping... She's a decent sleeper, but I just want more consistency and ease of putting her to bed if I'm not around.

I'm sure I'll be back with more questions once I get the book.

laura1 · August 2013

We used bits and pieces from 3 different books with DS. Started with the Baby Whisperer book, which was great getting us on a routine. Having more of a routine helped briefly around 4 months. DS was a horrible sleeper as well - couldn't put himself to sleep, and wouldn't stay asleep unless he was swaddled, and around 6 months, he was busting out of his swaddle every 1-2 hours all night long and needing help to get back to sleep. So then we used the Ferber book. I didn't read the whole thing (gasp!), but just read the parts of chapters that pertained to what we were doing. I also used bits and pieces of info from Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.

For us, in hindsight after having 2 more children, I think it would have been better for DS to not have done Ferber, but just straight CIO. The check ins made it so much worse for him, but made me feel better to feel like I was doing something. He cried for 1.5 hours the first night, but I honestly think it would have been less if I hadn't gone in at all. The second night was 1 hour and 20 minutes of crying, then after that he cried for 10 minutes the third night, fourth night was 5 minutes, and then no crying at all. It was miraculous! I still fed him overnight (he was a peanut, and I couldn't handle more crying) and he needed 2 feeds at first, then after a week or 2 he dropped to one, then finally slept through the night at about 8 months old (I was already pg again with DD#1 - lol).

Good luck - sleep training is rough but SO worth it!

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