Sleep Training Saved my Sanity

As new parents we all go through it, a period of time where we sacrifice our sleep to tend to our little ones, where we do whatever we can to help them get a good night sleep – I called this the survival mode period . As first time parents my husband and I went through just this, Greyson was rocked to sleep, napped and sometimes slept the night in our arms and slowly moved his way from his bed side bassinet to co-sleeping in our bed. When Greyson was 3.5 months, we made the decision to try and move him from our room to his crib, we started with naps for a few days and then moved to night time sleep. Things were going well, there was hope….and then it happened, the dreaded 4 month regression. Greyson began waking 5,6,7,8 times a night and was so difficult to get back down, after a few days we moved him back into our room. It felt like the regression lasted forever, Greyson began getting more and more difficult to get back to sleep after he woke, eventually the only way he would sleep was in the bed with us. After about a week of co-sleeping and my husband and I getting NO sleep at all we picked a date and were going to start sleep training.

Now I am not a sleep consultant nor am I an expert at infant sleep, however I was able to take my 5 month old Co-Sleeping, Cat Napper to 1-2 hour naps and sleeping (mostly) through the night in less than one week and this is how we did it.

We first started by reading, and reading and reading some more , we researched many different sleep training methods and decided on one. The first step was now to solidify a routine and stick to it NO MATTER WHAT. If you are going to sleep train make sure you pick some time where you have no obligations and can stick around home for a week or two. Reason for this is all naps and nighttime sleep should be in the crib and the same routine should be followed. Once we had our routine going for 3 days we started cold turkey, we decided we were going to do naps and night time sleep at the same time. This was 100% the harder way to do things but my husband and I both though this was best for our family and we were both on the same page.

Below is the rough schedule we are using for Greyson at 5.5 months old:

We are flexible with this schedule, depending if there is a night time feed Greyson sleeps 30-45 minutes longer. When this happens we just adjust accordingly.

Wake Time: 8am

Diaper change, liquid feed, solid feed, play time

First Nap: 10am (2 hours after wake time)

Liquid feed, Playtime – 11:30am

2nd Nap – 1:30pm (2-2.5 hours of wake time)

Liquid feed, solid feed, play time – 3:30

Cat Nap – 4:30-5:15 ( this should be no longer than 45 mins, this is a cat nap needed to keep baby going till bed time)

Liquid Feed – 5:30pm

Bedtime routine – 7pm

Asleep -730pm-745pm

Something that Daniel and I found worked was to create a routine for naps and bedtime, create one that works for your family. For naps we would change Greyson’s diaper, turn on the sound machine, zip him in his sleep sac, close the black out blinds, give him his lovey and kiss him on the forehead and walk out of the room. We ensured we did the same routine for every nap, we wanted to have these things be associated with naps to have Greyson know what was going on. Now for bedtime we have a little bit of a longer routine, if it’s a bath day we start with a 15 minute bath, dry him off, diaper change, PJS on, put him in his sleep sac, feed him a bottle in moms arms (with he lights on), burp, turn lights off, sound machine on , 1-2 minute cuddle with mom and then put him in his crib, kiss good night, lovey in arms and out the door. It is very important to have a routine that your little one can relate to bedtime, make sure you and your partner are doing the same thing to not confuse baby.

So after all the research, we figured the Ferber Method was going to work best for our family. This is a method of CIO however you check on your little one with the time increments getting longer and longer till they fall asleep. For naps we did the same thing while also using the crib hour method, which is basically leaving baby in the crib for a full hour even if they wake up. With both methods most families see results in as little as 4 days, if you do not see results after one week, stop and try again in a few weeks. This might be baby tell you they are not ready and still need you.

Okay so now let me talk about how the week looked.

**NOTE, to have better night sleep, make sure baby has good feeds throughout the day and is FULL, this will help with sleeping through the night***

Day One: The first nap of the day was HORRIBLE – Greyson cried for a full hour ,and did not fall asleep. Nap 2 was better and after 20 minutes Greyson fell asleep for 30 minutes and woke up ,I left him to CIO for the remaining 10 minutes and then went to get him. Nap 3 was better falling asleep in 15 minutes and sleeping for 30 minutes as well. During this process I allowed Greyson’s last nap of the day to be in my arms, this is called a rescue nap ensuring babe gets a good nap in to not be over tired for bedtime. Now bedtime came and as I had already been through the day it did not seem as bad, Greyson cried for a total of 40 mins before falling asleep. During the night he had 2 wake ups, 12am and 4am, during both I allowed him to CIO for 10 mins before making a bottle to ensure he was actually hungry. After each feed Greyson cried for 5-10 minutes and feel asleep waking in the morning at 7:30am. This pattern stayed the same for naps on Day Two, however night sleep got better and Greyson was able to put himself to sleep within 20 minutes. Day Three was even better, for naps we were down to 5-10 minutes and night sleep was within 5 minutes with ZERO tears, on night 3 Greyson also only woke once.

Now let me prepare you for what we call a BURST this tends to happen on the 4th night, with Greyson it felt like everything we had done was thrown in the garbage, It took forever for him to fall asleep and he woke 3 times taking 30-40 mins to go back down each time . This was the hardest night for us, worse than day one as we felt defeated. In short, a burst is pretty much baby protesting sleep and trying to get mom and dad to go back to their old ways. My advice here is STICK TO YOUR GUNS, IT WILL GET BETTER.

On the morning of day 5 Greyson slept till 830am, probably because he was exhausted from the evening, his first nap of the day he fell asleep with no tears within 5 minutes , and SLEPT FOR 1 HOUR!!!! Nap number 2 was 1.5 HOURS and on this night Greyson slept from 7:30pm-7:30am with ZERO wakes during the night !!!!! Day 6 and 7 we had great naps but Greyson went back to waking 1-2 times for a feed, however on day 8 Greyson slept for 13.5 hours. We now know Greyson is very capable of going the whole night without feeds but there are going to be nights where he wakes up and is hungry, or when he is teething and needs extra snuggles, is too hot or even just needs a diaper change – these things happen, do not get discouraged , if baby did it once they can do it again.

Throughout this whole process there are many things we learnt but these are the ones that stuck out the most.

1) Greyson was trying to drop a nap and go from 4 to 3, we were able to help him do this by sticking to his schedule.

2) Greyson has specific wake windows of 2 hours, beyond this he would become over tired and cranky.

3) Greyson’s first nap of the day was the longest

4) Greyson DID NOT need his soother to fall asleep or put himself back to sleep, he would actually spit it out right away.

If you have read this and now are making your own choice for you and your family to sleep train here are the 3 things I highly recommend you invest in before you begin.

1) A comfy sleep sac (that is not to big or small)

2) Black out curtains

3) A white noise machine

These items are not crutches for sleep, they are just items to help create an ideal sleep environment for your baby.

For our family sleep training was the best thing we could have done, for myself I was able to have time during the day to focus on things I loved. I joined a 30 day workout challenge and actually started this blog. My husband and I got our bed back (the dog still sleeps with us but he will be getting sleep trained next lol), and for the first time since before I was pregnant I had a full 7 hours of sleep. We also got our happy baby back, Greyson was well rested when he woke up and play time was more enjoyable to everyone. For us this worked, its not for everyone and I know that but I knew I needed to share more story, for that one family who is on the fence I hope this helps you.