This will be a quick post, because I’m heading to work after this, but I wanted to get it out of my brain before I forget what’s in there. You sleep deprived parents understand…
Though our 6-month-old used to have some pretty solid nighttime sleep patterns (3 hours+5 hours+3 hours), something invisible happened around 4 1/2 months and that pattern is no more. Now it’s more like waking every 30 min to 2 hours for one reason or another. At first it was because he had learned how to roll, so then he’d unknowingly roll into the crib slats in his sleep and either bonk his head on them or wake himself up in some other way, and this would send him into a tizzy — and it happened multiple times a night. Then he started teething. Then he started eating solids. I believe all of those things are kind of supposed to mess up baby’s sleep patterns — developmental milestones, pain, new foods — but, sheesh, do they all have to happen one right after the other?
After getting no more than about 90 minutes uninterrupted sleep, this mama decided that something needed to be done. My husband and I tried a few times to cry it out, you know where you put him in the crib when he’s drowsy and then pat him on the back every 5 minutes or so until he falls asleep after hours or screaming? We tried it about 4 times (between naps and nighttime sleep) and lasted about 30 minutes each time because we just couldn’t stand to force our baby to continue with the blood-curdling screams that made his face turn purple. And let me tell you, after just those 4 times over the course of 2 days of screaming in his crib, he has already demonstrated that he has an aversion to being in his room when he’s tired. Literally, my husband stood holding him in his room while trying to put him to bed the other night and Matthew kept crying and fussing, but when daddy stepped into the hallway, baby stopped fussing. Daddy steps back into baby’s room, baby starts fussing. Daddy steps back into hallway, baby stops fussing. And so on and so forth. Babies learn real quick, and we do NOT want him coming to associate his crib with crying and parents who force tough love on him. No sir, not for us.
We turned to a book called The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night, by Elizabeth Pantley, at the recommendation of both friends and my nursing book that I’ve had since before the baby was born. While I don’t have time to get into Pantley’s philosophy on helping babies sleep, I wanted to mention a few things we’ve done in the past day and how they’ve turned out.
Day One was on February 14…nothing more romantic than starting to help your baby sleep better, huh? We used the sleep logs in Pantley’s book to log Matthew’s naps and his nighttime sleep. The nighttime log revealed that he woke 7 times and slept for a maximum of 2 hours at a time and a minimum of 56 minutes. Not too hot, if you ask me. No wonder I can’t remember my own name, let alone where I put my phone or my keys.
Yesterday was Day Two, and we started to implement just a few things for nighttime sleep based on how far we’ve been able to read in the book. Here they are:
1. Started bedtime routine an hour before bedtime (6:10pm), and put bathtime at the beginning because Matthew really really loves bathtime and it’s not relaxing for him, it’s invigorating.
2. Kept lights dim in areas where baby was during bedtime prep (that was weird for me).
3. Read him a nighttime book, which I was thinking would go horribly because Matthew doesn’t like to sit up in our lap to read books (prefers laying on ground or tummy), and books are also exciting for him, much like bathtime. We read Goodnight Gorilla, and I kept my voice quiet and not too exciting.
4. Unlatched him from nursing once his suckling slowed down but before he fell asleep.
5. Used our “key word” of shhhhh (something we’ve been doing his whole life) anytime he needed to be comforted or put back to sleep and said nothing other than that, saying it as he fell asleep rather than only several minutes before.
That’s it.
Nothing too big, right?
Though he still woke about the same number of times last night, he voluntarily ate less with each nursing (which meant back to sleep sooner) and magically woke up this morning in a very happy mood. I could hear him cooing and blowing raspberries over the baby monitor as he rolled around and played with his feet and looked at himself in his alligator mirror.
We started the morning with a new routine which, after nursing him, includes putting him back in his crib with the curtains open and daylight streaming in through the windows so that he can play for a few minutes by himself while looking in the mirror and listening to the music coming from his crib crocodile.
For a method that’s meant to be gradual in the changes it facilitates, I’d say we’re off to a good start, wouldn’t you, Matthew?
becomingcliche
/ February 16, 2012Good luck with sleep training. Sleep cycles get disrupted frequently in the early months, but if you continue what you are doing, you can get through those times with minimal wear and tear. Consistency is key. There is a light at the end of the tunnel!
linzster
/ February 16, 2012Good luck with the continued training! Our youngest is just two months old, and I definitely feel like a walking zombie some days. I will have to come back to your tips as our little one gets older! Thanks for sharing!