Sleep training

I think I might have said I wasn't going to talk about sleep any more. It is our issue and today I'm sharing some good news! Last time I think I asked about cry it out. I was exhausted from walking around with Chase and knew he needed to learn how to put himself to sleep. My sister-in-law's sister had the answer I was looking for.

She told me about the pick up/put down method which I tihnk is in an old version of the baby whisperer. When you see the baby is tired, they are rubbing their eyes or whatever they do when they are tired, you go in their room and do 15 minutes of quiet time. I'm sure you've heard the different bedtime routine things. We started Friday morning with nap #1. Our nap/bedtime routine/quite time is rocking in the rocking chair reading or listening to music. Sometimes he's too tired to sit and listen to me to read so we just rock and listen to music. After 15 minutes I swaddled him up turned on music, said, "It's bedtime, goodnight" and put him in his crib. The first time we did it I'm not sure if I did 15 minutes of quiet time. I also don't think he was tired enough. He hung out in his crib for 30 minutes before getting upset. Then it took him about 45 minutes to go to sleep. With the pick up/put down method you can go into their room and pick them up to calm them down as often as you like but you can walk around or jiggle them. She said it shouldn't take longer than 45 minutes for them to fall asleep.

I'll be honest it was awful. I thought he would do a lot less crying than he did. I'm not sure if we even needed to do this, but we did. It took him 55 minutes to fall asleep for nap #2. Things got all messed up that day and I was trying to put him down for nap #3 way too late. My sister-in-law's sister said they get 2.5 hours to nap. The crying/falling asleep part counts for the 2.5 hours. I think I made a mistake with that part the first day. My husband came home and that made things more difficult. It was taking longer than 45 minutes so we gave in and walked him around.

We tried again the next day with nap #1 and Chase fell asleep while I was rocking and reading. So we thought we had trained him. He was probably just tired for all the crying the day before. But the good news is that Chase and I are working on getting him to put himself to sleep. Today he put himself to sleep for naps 1 and 2 and didn't cry! I have faith that he will be putting himself to sleep for all his naps and bedtime soon!

I was reading about stranger anxiety on babycenter.com last night and read this article How do I teach my baby to soothe himself to sleep? I love this part, "You can't really teach your baby how to self-soothe, but you can provide him with the opportunity to teach himself. Given the right circumstances and the right stage of development, usually between 3 and 6 months of age, it will happen on its own. It's like learning to crawl: If you always carry your baby, he'll never have a chance to discover crawling, since he'll never be on the floor long enough to figure it out. It's the same thing with self-soothing: If you always nurse or rock your baby to sleep, he'll never have a chance to learn how to soothe himself to sleep." I also believe this, "What happens if you've given your baby plenty of chances to self-soothe and he just can't seem to do it? Take a step back and try to figure out why. Perhaps he's simply too young and doesn't yet have the developmental ability to self-soothe, just as a 3-month-old can spend hours on the living room floor yet still won't be able to crawl .In this case, wait a few days, weeks or even months before trying again. Or maybe your baby is too tired — and thus too overwrought — to settle down by himself. In this case, try moving his bedtime a bit earlier so he isn't a complete wreck by lights-out. Finally, think about whether you're really giving your baby an opportunity to find ways to soothe himself, or are rushing in to comfort him at his first peep and depriving him of the chance to figure it out on his own."