So we had to a little "sleep training" with Claire to improve her sleep. Basically that means letting her cry until she figures out how to self soothe and get to sleep on her own. I had heard of it before kids and thought that it made sense and I would totally do it with my kids. Then Claire was here and she seemed so little and needy. And the sleep wasn't too bad and improving over time. Then around mid-July the sleep wasn't so good. She'd be up a couple times a night, eating or for the pacifier, and it was difficult to get her to go to sleep to. Then one night she had me up 8 times! So I began to consider the idea of sleep training and was trying to read up on the subject. I realized first I needed to get her on a more consistent sleep schedule. No more going to bed anywhere between 8 and 10 and getting up anywhere between 7:30 and 10:30. So we aimed for bed by 9/9:30 and up by 8:30. We worked on that for a few days and then were going to work on going to sleep on our own.
Then Claire made the decision easy on us. The night of July 17th, after returning home from my parents, we put her to bed drowsy and didn't hear anything for 10-15 minutes. Then she started wailing and nothing we did could console her. Rocking, walking, pacifier, food, nothing did it for her. So we just had to let her cry it out. I went with the progressive waiting strategy, going in to check on her after 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, etc.
Here's a rundown, cut and pasted from an email:
She napped in the car on the way home so she went to bed late. Fed her, laid her down and didn't really hear much for 10-15 minutes. Just as I was wondering if she had gone to sleep she started up with the crying. Jeff and I took turns going up to put the pacifier in, soothe her, etc. But it wasn't working. She'd suck on the paci and calm down, but then just as I'd turn to go out she'd start back up. At one point I even picked her up to hold her, rock her, and even tried to feed her but she wanted none of it. So I decided to move up my plan to let her cry it out right then. I followed the progressive waiting approach where you come up to check on them and do some quick soothing without picking them but you wait longer each time. So Sunday night it was about 40 minutes of crying, but it didn't seem that long, because I wasn't just sitting there listening to 40 minutes straight. And it was only a mid level crying, not her full out gurgling cry. So she was asleep by about 11 and slept through til 7:15! Fed her and let her fall back asleep by 7:30 so I could pump. She woke herself up at 7:45.
Tried to continue the same for naps yesterday. Took two short ones morning and early afternoon so she was grumpy much of the day. Took a nice long nap in the afternoon though. She seemed real tired by 7:30 last night but I tried to keep her up. Didn't want to nurse. Finally gave in at 8 and got her ready for bed and gave her a bottle. She was falling asleep eating the bottle but then seemed pretty awake when I tried to lay her down. So I brought her downstairs. She was content for another half hour then started getting fussy again. So I went upstairs and gave her a little more food just to top her off. Laid her down drowsy but awake. She cried for a few minutes and was out by 8:45. Slept til 4:45 and got up to eat. Woke up again at 7 and I went ahead and fed her. She went back to sleep until 8:01.
Laid her down for a nap at 10: 40 this morning. She whined/fussed for a few minutes but nothing that could be heard downstairs without the monitor, except for one cry. Asleep by 10:45. She slept for about 40-45 minutes and is now babbling and whining to herself. And all without a paci.
So the first few days went well. I was also going to work on gradually eliminating night feedings since she had done it on her own a few nights. I decided one night that I wasn't going to feed her before 4 am. She woke up at 4:03! From that point on the progression gets a little hazy in mind now that it's a month later. I think I had one or two nights of listening to her cry 15-20 minutes in the middle of the night. Our upstairs A/C also went out around that time so she was in our room with a window unit some nights and with my parents for a night. So if she got up, she got fed. But eventually she was going down with only a few minutes of crying and sleeping through the night. It's fabulous!
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