The First 3 Nights of Sleep Training

So in a previous post, I discussed why we started the decision to sleep train. Here we are, a few weeks later. Is our sleep better? Yes. Is it perfect? No, Nope, and No Way. But I will take what we can get at this point. So, I bring to you our sleep training experience (the first three nights), in diary form. Stay tuned for Part 2 soon!

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Setting the Scene

So here is how we put Wyatt to bed. He goes down at seven-thirty in a pack-and-play next to our bed, on my side. He has a large mattress in it for comfort. We also usually have a heater going in our room as it gets chilly during the winter. When we put Wyatt to bed, I turn on a sound machine so he can’t hear us out in the living room. I usually turn it off when we go to bed as Cody will usually turn on a fan (stupid right? a heater and a fan?!) and we don’t need that many electrical devices going!

Night 0

I call this night 0 because upon going to bed, I hadn’t actually decided to sleep train Wyatt yet. I went into the night planning on it being like any other. Wyatt would wake up multiple times and I would feed him. He would go to sleep and then I would sleep, albeit not as much as I should.

Wyatt woke up when we went to bed at 9:30 and I fed him then. He then woke up at 11:50 and I fed him then as well. I actually didn’t look at the clock until after I fed him. When I realized it was only midnight, I was aggravated. “Really? Only 2 hours of sleep between feedings?” I thought. This is ridiculous.

Shortly after Wyatt ate, Mia was up as she wasn’t feeling well with an ear infection, so I ended up in her bed for awhile. Mind you, I realized that I didn’t feel very well at this time either and probably had a fever myself.

By 2 A.M., I was back in my own bed, but due to illness, I had not gotten much sleep at all. When Wyatt woke up, I was done. I needed sleep! So I made the decision, NO MORE! I was NOT going to feed him every 2 hours during the night. He is 10 months old. He does not need to eat that much. So I decided it was time to sleep train.

As I decided this at 2 A.M., there wasn’t really much of a plan. I let him cry. When his cries got more distressed, I picked him up and patted his back. I offered him his pacifier, which he sometimes took. Once he settled back down, I laid him back in bed. He would fuss a little bit and sometimes it would seem like he dozed off and sometimes his crying to would get a little worse. (Oh and Cody woke up during this crying mess and wondered what the heck was going on, so our conversation didn’t help Wyatt go back to sleep right away either.)

By 2:30, it seemed like he was out. Until the cat jumped in his bed and woke him up. Repeat process. By 3 he was asleep. At 3:30, I don’t know what woke him up, but I went ahead and nursed him. We all went back to sleep until 7:30 A.M., but the decision had been made. We were sleep training!

Night 1

Heading into Night 1, I was a little more prepared. Throughout the day, I had done a little research on sleep training, got some tips from moms I knew, and had mentally prepared myself. As Wyatt goes to sleep at 7:30 and wakes up at 7:30, I was going to allow him one feed a night, between 1 and 2 as it’s 6 hours into his sleep cycle. If he slept longer than 2, I would still allow him a feed, but if he fed between 1 and 2, I wasn’t going to allow him to eat until morning.

Wyatt went to sleep at 7:30 on the dot. He nursed for a good 10 minutes before drifting off, so I know he had enough to eat. I also went to bed at 8:15 as I didn’t know what this night would hold, and I was still exhausted from the night before!

11:30 p.m. : He’s awake and fussing. His cries get louder and more distressed, so I pick him up and he calms down some, but he won’t take a pacifier. I lay him back in bed and he cries louder, but I ignore it as hard as that is and I lay in bed.

His cries do calm down some and they are intermittent so I don’t pick him back up. I figure as long as he is not distressing himself by crying and taking breaks between fussing, he is okay, just not happy. At midnight, his cries are far enough apart that I think he might be going back to sleep, but then Cody gets up out of bed and goes to sleep on the couch.

Ugh! I could have screamed at him! Wyatt noticed Cody and started up his fussing in full form! So we were back at square one and he had to calm himself down again. I also noticed that any time I moved to where he noticed, it worked him up again too. He thought he was getting a reaction out of me and I would pick him up, so I tried to stay as still as possible. (Hard to do when you have a fussing child that you want to help!)

But, by 12:30 he was out and sleeping soundly. We all drifted off to sleep until 5:00 A.M. When Wyatt woke up then, he was way past the 2 A.M. mark I had set for us, so I nursed him back to sleep and he slept until 7:44 A.M. Yay! I would call Night 1 a success!

Night 2

Night 2 wasn’t a whole lot better than Night 1, but it wasn’t any worse. Wyatt probably did a little better actually. He woke up at 11:10 and he fussed off and on for about 45 minutes until he fell back asleep. His fussing was less and it didn’t last as long, so I guess that is a win! He woke back up at 4:00 and I did feed him so he’d go back to sleep. Not a bad night.

Night 3

Night three of sleep training was a big win in my book. Wyatt didn’t wake up until 3:30. I thought about feeding him, but I didn’t want his feedings to progressively get earlier in the morning, so I decided against it. He feel back asleep in 20 minutes and didn’t wake up again until 5, when I did feed him! We are on the right track! He might be sleeping through the night soon!

To be continued …