Sleep Training Diary

Night 1: I read the Sleep Sense Program by Dana Obelman and was fully ready to implement my schedule, plan, and had the determination to see this through. I was extremely tired of waking up several times a night to meet Andrews needs that really did not need to be met. The truth was I had not taught Andrew the proper way to fall alseep. I aided his sleep through, rocking, bottles, and his pacifier, his music, etc. So when Andrew was going through his REM cycle every hour he was waking up not knowing how to go back to sleep. I only have myself and lack of education on this subject to blame. So it began...

At 6:30 i started his 30 minutes bed-time routine with a bath, PJ's, 2 short songs, a book, and his last bottle of the day. At 7 sharp he was in his bed with no pacifier only his loveable blankie. He whined for a minute or two and was fast asleep! Wahoo i thought..but usually after a bottle he falls alseep anyway. At midnight I awoke to him screaming and went to check on him only to find him stripped down naked. Franco had gone in and changed his diaper before i heard him and Andrew peeed all over his jammies and his sheets and blankets. I helped franco change him, the sheets, etc and then quickly laid Andrew down again only with his blankie and told him night-night. Thats when it all began. he realized that no bottle was coming, no rocking him to sleep, and no mobile music was on. Only the sound of the quiet humming of his humidifier. That was at midnight and by almost 2 am he had stopped screaming and had fallen asleep.

Let me just tell you though that those 2 hours were the worst of my life. I kept wanting to get up to go cuddle him, rock him, i just wanted to comfort him. I am sooo grateful for Franco's support. The night before i had read the book i was kind of trying to implement it myself but when andrew was crying Franco said, ok he can cry but if he calls out Dadda I am going to get him..sure enough 10 seconds later Andrew was crying dadddddaddaaadddaaa..and he was in Francos arms. BUT this night was different we knew that it was best for Andrew to learn to fall asleep on his own and he stood by me. Franco was the one comforting me as i was trying to break the rules that we had established. When Andrew fell asleep i quietly went in there and smiled because I was so proud of him, & i covered him up with a warm fuzzy blanket and was off to sleep. Andrew woke up at 5 am and this time i made him a bottle, took him out of his crib and fed him making sure he was awake the whole time (in the book she says it ok if you feed them just dont let them fall asleep feeding) i was confused though if i really should be feeding him but i figured it had been 10 hours so it was ok. I put Andrew back in his crib completely awake. He whined again for a second but soon fell asleep and woke up at 8 am for the day! YES we had made it through the first night.