Saturday, June 5, 2010

Night #3 of Sleep Training

YAY!!! Night #3 totally makes up for night #2! Last night was so great, I hope we continue on this trend. I put him down for bed at 8:30PM without a peep. We were finishing watching a movie...at at the 50 minute mark, we heard one cry. We both looked at each other, and I said "oh no! Not this again!" But it was just that one cry...and then blissful silence. So I did a dreamfeed before we went to bed at 10:30 and then set my alarm for 3 hours later at 1:30. What time did Braden start crying? 1:30 on the dot when my alarm went off! How does he do that? So I got up, charted that when he woke up...and let him go. He actually wasn't even "crying" it was more of a fussing. I didn't even go do a check-in at 5 minutes as it seems to tick him off even more. I thought I'd go check him at the 10 minute mark...but he stopped fussing at 1:36! Only 6 minutes this time! What a huge difference to the previous night. So I gave him 10 minutes, did a dreamfeed and went back to sleep. Set my alarm for 3 hours later and fed him again without a peep.

Next came him stirring at about 6:30. It only took about 10 minutes and back to sleep he went. He then stirred at 7:30 for one cry and then I got him up at 8! He wasn't as happy as he usually was, but he had a pretty decent scratch on his left cheek and his night diaper leaked a little bit. The way he's been soothing himself back to sleep is either by sucking his thumb or by smushing his taggie blanket on his face, which probably resulted in the scratch. I trimmed his nails AGAIN this morning so hopefully that won't happen anymore. The book suggests giving them a blanket or a "mommy bear" stuffed animal as a comfort object, so I bought him a homemade taggie off of Etsy, It's only 9x9 and breathable. He loves it!
So Braden slept 5 hrs, 5 hrs, and 1.5 hrs! What an improvement. I just have a really good feeling that this sleep training, or sleep learning as I should be calling it will really work for us. Braden was able to self-soothe at 8 weeks on, but seemed to have forgotten it when he turned 3 months so I know that he'll get the hang of it again. Tonight I'll do dreamfeeds every 3.5 hours...thanks for that 1/2 hour increment suggestion, Kathleen...if I ended up doing the 15 mins like I originally planned...I'd be doing this until he was 5! ;) Eventually I want to get to a dreamfeed before bed, then one feed at the half-way mark at about 4:30 and do that for awhile and then I'll wean those feeds, or just cut them out completely depending on how he's doing.

Thanks for reading, your support, and your positivity and encouragement!

2 comments:

  1. That's a fabulous improvement!! I'm very happy about that! Especially since I'm coming down next weekend! Ha!

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  2. great news whoooooooo hoooooooo .... i would still take him until he's 4 ......

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