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October 2015 Moms
vamomtobe
member
My experience with sleep training
vamomtobe
member
So there are a lot of ways to sleep train out there, and a lot of opinions on when, if ever, it's appropriate. I'll probably get some negative comments on this post, and that's understandable given the strong opinions out there. I chose to sleep train at 5 months once LO could understand that objects (including mommy) continue to exist when they're out of eyesight, and our doctor had advised that it was OK. I thought I'd share our experience with anyone thinking of trying it. I know experiences can be drastically different, so take this with a grain of salt.
Why did we decide to do it? LO was still waking every 45 minutes to an hour until we'd give in and bring her into bed with us, usually around 1 or 2 am. Cosleeping works for a lot of families, but it wasn't working for ours. I was paranoid that something would happen to her, and I wasn't sleeping. Plus big brother started having meltdowns because he wanted in on this sweet sleep-in-mommy-and-daddy's-bed deal. I was at my wit's end.
What method did we use? Ferber. DH and I talked about it ahead of time and decided to stick to what we both felt comfortable with. We decided that I'd nurse her to sleep, lay her down, and do the following when she woke up the first time: wait 3 minutes; have DH go in to soothe her without picking her up for no more than 2 minutes; wait 5 minutes; have DH go in to soothe again; wait 7 minutes; have DH go in; wait 10 minutes. We weren't comfortable with letting her cry longer than 10 minutes, so we decided that we'd just continue going in every 10 minutes after that point. We had DH go in to soothe on the assumption that LO might get more upset if I went in to soothe but didn't nurse her.
First night: I nursed her and held her sleeping for about 40 minutes before I laid her in her crib around 8. She woke at 9. She cried for 3 minutes, DH did 1st check-in. She was still crying through the check-in and was still crying when he left. That was hard. She cried for 5 more minutes. It was getting really, really hard at this point. I've thought about this - I've been in the car with her, stuck in traffic or whatever, and unable to comfort her when she's cried in her carseat. That's really hard too, but this is so much harder even if the duration is shorter because you are CHOOSING not to run in and pick her up. So at the 5 min check-in, she did calm down and stopped crying, but a few minutes into the 7 minutes, she started crying again. At this point I felt like the worst human being on the planet. At the 7 min check-in, DH soothed her and she stopped crying again. And didn't start again! She slept until 12, I nursed her and laid her in her crib, she slept again until 4:30, I nursed her, she got up about an hour later for the day.
2nd night - we agreed on slightly increased intervals of 5, 7, and 10 minutes. Again, we didn't want her to cry for longer than 10 just because that's what we were comfortable with. It was hard on DH on night one, so we agreed that I'd do the check-ins this time. After the second check-in we agreed that she was getting more upset when I went in and that he'd take the 3rd - but we didn't need to because she fell asleep and had another great night.
3rd night - she wasn't feeling well so we decided that we wouldn't let her cry at all that night. I put her down at 7:30 and she slept until 2! I think mainly because she wasn't feeling well. She had diarrhea and I ended up staying up with her a few hours, but she slept again from about 4 to 6. No crying!
4th night - She was totally better but we were conflicted about what to do with sleep training since she had been sick the day before. We didn't come to any agreement and just decided to wing it. I put her down at 7:30, and she got up at 12 (nursed) and again at 4 (nursed) and slept until 6:30, latest she's ever slept in. Nooooo crying!
This is really long, sorry! Anyway I'm probably jinxing myself by declaring victory too early, but I think we've turned the corner. When LO wakes in the morning she is so cheerful. She actually coos when she gets up in the morning. I feel like a normal functional person again. I wanted to share a positive story. I think the keys to success are to have an agreed-upon plan ahead of time, and to stick to it.
Why did we decide to do it? LO was still waking every 45 minutes to an hour until we'd give in and bring her into bed with us, usually around 1 or 2 am. Cosleeping works for a lot of families, but it wasn't working for ours. I was paranoid that something would happen to her, and I wasn't sleeping. Plus big brother started having meltdowns because he wanted in on this sweet sleep-in-mommy-and-daddy's-bed deal. I was at my wit's end.
What method did we use? Ferber. DH and I talked about it ahead of time and decided to stick to what we both felt comfortable with. We decided that I'd nurse her to sleep, lay her down, and do the following when she woke up the first time: wait 3 minutes; have DH go in to soothe her without picking her up for no more than 2 minutes; wait 5 minutes; have DH go in to soothe again; wait 7 minutes; have DH go in; wait 10 minutes. We weren't comfortable with letting her cry longer than 10 minutes, so we decided that we'd just continue going in every 10 minutes after that point. We had DH go in to soothe on the assumption that LO might get more upset if I went in to soothe but didn't nurse her.
First night: I nursed her and held her sleeping for about 40 minutes before I laid her in her crib around 8. She woke at 9. She cried for 3 minutes, DH did 1st check-in. She was still crying through the check-in and was still crying when he left. That was hard. She cried for 5 more minutes. It was getting really, really hard at this point. I've thought about this - I've been in the car with her, stuck in traffic or whatever, and unable to comfort her when she's cried in her carseat. That's really hard too, but this is so much harder even if the duration is shorter because you are CHOOSING not to run in and pick her up. So at the 5 min check-in, she did calm down and stopped crying, but a few minutes into the 7 minutes, she started crying again. At this point I felt like the worst human being on the planet. At the 7 min check-in, DH soothed her and she stopped crying again. And didn't start again! She slept until 12, I nursed her and laid her in her crib, she slept again until 4:30, I nursed her, she got up about an hour later for the day.
2nd night - we agreed on slightly increased intervals of 5, 7, and 10 minutes. Again, we didn't want her to cry for longer than 10 just because that's what we were comfortable with. It was hard on DH on night one, so we agreed that I'd do the check-ins this time. After the second check-in we agreed that she was getting more upset when I went in and that he'd take the 3rd - but we didn't need to because she fell asleep and had another great night.
3rd night - she wasn't feeling well so we decided that we wouldn't let her cry at all that night. I put her down at 7:30 and she slept until 2! I think mainly because she wasn't feeling well. She had diarrhea and I ended up staying up with her a few hours, but she slept again from about 4 to 6. No crying!
4th night - She was totally better but we were conflicted about what to do with sleep training since she had been sick the day before. We didn't come to any agreement and just decided to wing it. I put her down at 7:30, and she got up at 12 (nursed) and again at 4 (nursed) and slept until 6:30, latest she's ever slept in. Nooooo crying!
This is really long, sorry! Anyway I'm probably jinxing myself by declaring victory too early, but I think we've turned the corner. When LO wakes in the morning she is so cheerful. She actually coos when she gets up in the morning. I feel like a normal functional person again. I wanted to share a positive story. I think the keys to success are to have an agreed-upon plan ahead of time, and to stick to it.
Re: My experience with sleep training
We were having a sleep regression with my four month old. He was sleeping through the night four weeks ago. This lasted for two weeks straight. Then he started waking up more and more at night. Last week we got to the point where he was not sleeping at all unless we held him at night and he screamed most of the evening.
I began using a modified Ferber method. I thought a lot about our night time routine and realized I was doing it all wrong. I also talked to our daycare and she said he was putting himself to sleep for naps so I came to the conclusion that he could do it at home too. The read some articles on object permanence and negative sleep associations and those ideas really resonated with me. I decided to commit to some sort of sleep training for his benefit as well as mine.
I got my little man to sleep in his crib after 35 minutes of crying last night. He woke up for his first middle of the night feeding at 10pm and went back to sleep within 20 minutes. The second middle of the night feeding at 3:45am he went to sleep after 13 minutes of fussing. He's already taken two naps today. The first one was 8 minutes of crying and the second one was 5 minutes of crying. I know we still have some work to do and need to get him back to sleeping through the night. I think with how bad the last two weeks were and nursing him every time he woke up at night he might have come to rely on those night time calories again even though he didn't need them four weeks ago.
We lucked out and got a good sleeper, but I want to learn all I can about sleep training for when we (hopefully) have another one