At her 4 month appointment, our Dr said we could start sleep training with her. She suggested we start putting her in her room and if we put her down at 7, to wake her up to feed before I went to bed. While I agreed with putting her in her room, I did not think it would be good to wake her up to feed, so we did not do that.
We decided to use the same sleep program we used with Lincoln. In this program you are suppose to give it three days to work. The basic principles of this are to put them down somewhere in the 6 o'clock hour, put them down slightly awake, let them try to work it out for up to an hour before you go in, and no crutches (ie, paci or rocking).
We started two Sunday's ago with cereal (for the first time!) at 6, a bath at 6:30 and then pjs and nursing at 7. After I fed her, I put her in her bed around 7:30. That night she slept until 11:45 and then cried for about an hour. I was on my way to get her and then she stopped crying and went back to sleep until 7 the next morning. Night 2 was great because she only woke up at 8pm and fussed for 10 minutes and then didn't make a peep until I got her up in the morning. Night 3 was a whole different story! She went down fine, but woke about 12:45 and cried for 15 minutes and seemingly went to sleep but then woke up and cried again for 30 minutes and this went on and off for 3 hours. I finally gave in and went to get her and decided to feed her. Turns out she was just hungry and went right sleep after I fed her, poor baby. From that, Craig and I decide that I would feed her once at night (anytime after 12) and then let her work it out the rest of the times if she wakes. From night 4 on that is what we have been doing. She now seems to wake up around 3-4am every day, so I guess that is her new pattern. But I think 7pm to 3am is a great stretch. And a bonus is that I can put her back in bed after the 3am feed and she goes back to sleep until I have to get her in the morning.
Contrary to her face here, she does like her food! We went back and fourth on whether or not to start her on food, but our Dr said we should at least do some cereal to get her use to the act of eating and it has gone good. Our Dr actually prefers we do veggies over cereal, but she said sometimes they wont take it.
We have tried the veggies too and she seems to like them too. Mostly, she just likes to chew on the spoon which is fun. So far, she seems like she will be a better eater than Lincoln, so I am hopeful!
Yum!
I hope we can continue this sleep training pattern and then at six months we may revisit not getting up to feed her until 5 or 6am. I just don't think she is full enough to last that long. I am very pleased with how this has worked, it was way easier at her age than at Lincoln (he was 13 months old). I too use to be a person that could not let her child cry, but I guess now I understand that this is the way they process at night, much like we may say our prayers when we are laying down to sleep. We all have some kind of comfort thing we do to help us sleep and since they can't talk yet, crying is their way. Hopefully that makes sense.
Now naps are a whole other issue! The sleep training says do the same for naps, but I just can't stand letting her cry that long during the day. We are working on it, but have not found anything that works for a nap longer than 20 minutes apart from holding her the whole time. I do love holding her, so that is nice, but it makes it hard to get anything done! For now, I will just enjoy my cuddle time with her, because before I know it, she won't want to anymore! Here is Kenny and Daddy napping her favorite way. They look so peaceful!
Until next time, sleep well!
1 comment:
Sounds like you're putting in some serious time to Kennedy's sleep "boot camp", as we call it around here. It sounds like it's paying off, though! I'm glad she's at least sleeping better at night! She is so stinkin' cute!
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