Sleep Training

This may be boring to a lot of you, but it is what has been on my mind all week so I'm writing about it.  It is also much longer than I meant it to be--sorry, I have a hard time editing myself.

Lia was a pretty good sleeper her first month and a half or so.  We had her in the bassinet in our room.  When we went to bed, I'd feed her and lay her in her bassinet and she'd fall asleep, with the occasional help of her pacifier, and stay asleep for 6-8 hours.  I know, awesome, right?  It was great.  Then she got sick and decided she didn't want to be a good sleeper anymore.  I'd lay her down and in about 20 minutes she'd start fussing.  The pacifier was rejected.  Pacing the halls got her to sleep until we tried to lay her down--you mommies know how it goes.  The only surefire way to get her to sleep was to lay her in our bed, snuggling with one of us.  Honestly, I didn't really mind this method every once in a while. I'd doze next to her for a couple hours, not really sleeping because I can't sleep with an infant snuggled next to my side, it's too scary. Then we'd gently transfer her to her bed and sleep the rest of the  night, if we were lucky.  If we weren't lucky, the process would start over in a few hours.

The biggest problem was that we were trying to put her to bed when we went to bed, around 11:00.  If she went right to sleep, it wasn't a problem at all.  But on the nights she didn't, we became exhausted and frustrated very quickly.  Still, we loved having our Little one in our room, hearing her breathing so contently next to us, listening to her funny snorts and grunts.  It made us feel like a cozy little family.

Well, by the end of February, the bad nights were beginning to outnumber the good ones.  Lia was getting so ornery about going to bed.  She didn't want to be rocked, didn't want her pacifier, didn't want to be nursed, didn't even want to snuggle.  I was starting to really think about moving her to her own room and sleep training her, but the thought of putting her in there alone was hard for us. 

Our trip to Las Vegas was what convinced me to do it.  She slept so great the whole trip.  I'd lay her in the crib and she'd fall asleep immediately and sleep the whole night.  It was amazing.  The first night home, however, she was back to her old sleeptime antics.  I realized that she was perfectly capable of putting herself to sleep, she had just gotten used to sleeping with us.  So I told Dustin I was going to start sleep training her the next day.

Now, there are basically two different schools of thought on getting your baby to sleep through the night.  The first is the "no tears" method--to do anything to make your baby feel comfortable, secure, and safe as she slowly drifts off to sleep. That way she forms positive feelings about sleep and will probably eventually be able to put herself to sleep. The second is to let them cry it out.  The baby needs to learn to put herself to sleep at some time in her life, right?  May as well do it while she's young.

The "no tears" method sounds great, right?  Turns out it was what I had been doing already.  You are supposed to find out your baby's favorite way of falling asleep, such as rocking her, nursing her, putting her in the car for a drive, snuggling, massaging, etc.  Once she's deeply asleep enough, she won't notice you laying her in her crib.  And if she wakes up, do it again.  In reality, this method only works if you have literally hours to spare putting your kid to bed, if you don't need sleep yourself, and if you don't mind having to be there for your child to be able to fall asleep. This is not me. The baby may form positive feelings about sleep but the mom (me) was forming negative feelings about the child keeping her up all night.  I was getting frustrated and tired and Dustin and I both have work in the mornings.   

That left the cry it out method.  We had sort of already tried this once, about a week before the Vegas trip.  We put her in the crib in her own room and left her.  Two hours later, she was still screaming furiously and had gotten hungry, so we gave in, I nursed her, and she went to bed with us. 

After reading this book, however, I realized our mistake.  Mindell's method is to set up a soothing bedtime routine, then put the baby in her crib.  She'll start to cry, but instead of just leaving her there, you go back in  after 5 minutes and soothe and reassure her without taking her out of her crib.  That way she knows you haven't abandoned her, but she also learns that she has to stay in her crib because it's bedtime.  She'll probably cry about 45 minutes the first night.  Keep going in every 5 or ten minutes.  The next night do the same thing, but wait longer periods of time before checking on her. She'll probably cry longer the second night, to see if you're serious.  Be consistent, and by the end of the week she will be falling asleep on her own without crying at all.  I decided this was the best way for us because I knew Lia was capable of putting herself to sleep on her own, she just needed a little encouragement from us.

This is the exciting part--it worked!  We started a simple bedtime routine: diaper, jammies, story, song, bed.  We also started putting her to bed much earlier in the evening.  The first night she cried about an hour.  The second night, half an hour.  The third night, 45 minutes.  Fourth night, 20 minutes.  Fifth night, ten minutes.  Every night after that, she has gone right to sleep with no crying at all.  I am so so so happy about this!  It was hard for us to go try to comfort her when she was crying so pitifully, but I think it is better for everyone in the end. 

Critics of the cry it out method say you are ruining your baby's relationship with you, they stop trusting you and eventually put themselves to sleep because they have given up all hope of you ever coming to their aid again, and you are probably scarring them for life.  I don't believe this is true.  Lia loves her bedtime routine now, she talks along with us as we read her stories.  And we weren't ever "abandoning" her.  We came to check on her every few minutes.  And now she knows she doesn't need us to get a good nights sleep.  I think this is a good thing. 

I feel so good about my parenting right now, if only in this aspect.  I feel like I was really paying attention to the needs of my whole family, and figuring out what was best for all of us, and starting a plan that worked for us.  That's why I felt I had to write out every boring detail of the whole story, because I really feel like I did something good and right for my daughter, my husband, and myself.   Of course, everything else about being a mom and wife I still need to work on.  But I am doing this!  My baby is sleeping peacefully, by herself, in her own room.  Life is good! 

(I'm sure something will eventually come up that will throw everything out of whack, but for now, I am enjoying this.)