Sleep Training

When you discover you are going to be a first-time parent, there are many things that you need to prepare for in order to be "ready" for your baby to become part of your life.  One of those things is sleep training.  I never really thought about it until it was the time to do it because I didn't think about it as something that I would have to "train" my child to do.  It just wasn't one of those things that I heard much about from my family and friends.

As Makadie was nearing her 4 month mark, Covey and I decided that Makadie's unpredictable schedule needed to become more predictable.  It was getting really hard for me to feel like I could go anywhere or do anything because I never knew how long Makadie was going to sleep, when she was going to wake up, how long she was going to be awake, etc.  For those of you who know me, you know that I like my schedules.  I'm not inflexible, but when I had no idea what was going to be happening from day to day, I was pretty much going crazy.

So....what to do?  Which method to use?  Do I need to use a method?  I didn't know.  I posted on Facebook to see what my fellow friends had to say about it and their responses were varied.  Some said to just let her cry.  Others suggested staying by her crib until she fell asleep.  And every response in between.  I knew my friends were trying to be helpful, but I felt just as lost after asking for help as I did before.  

So I started to narrow it down by what I knew I didn't want to do.  I knew I did not want to put Makadie in her crib and let her cry.  But I also knew it wasn't practical to stay with her every time until she fell asleep.  Ultimately, after reading a few books, I settled on the method discussed in 'Good night, Sleep Tight' by The Sleep Lady.  It is a more gradual method of sleep training that still allowed for some flexibility.

Now I have to mention that on top of sleep training, we also stopped swaddling Makadie.  So here she is, no longer being swaddled and we're trying to teach her how to fall asleep on her own when we've been rocking her to sleep since she was born.  I also have to point out that we started nap training at the same time.  Poor kid.  It was rough on her and it was rough on us.  We did see improvement over the next couple of weeks and Makadie started to be able to fall asleep on her own, but she was still crying more than I was hoping for by using this method.

After almost a month, she is still waking up to eat once during the night, but it doesn't take nearly as long for her to fall asleep.  As a result, Covey and I are both getting more sleep which makes us much happier people. :)   Long story short, we are still working with her.  Ultimately, we want her to be able to sleep through the night without waking up to eat within the next couple of months. 

 

But today, we had a great moment.  Makadie fell asleep for each of her three naps within 5 minutes, and then she slept for an hour and a half without waking up once!  Halla-freaking-luiah!  We are making progress!