Sleep Training

I hate sleep training.  It is so hard on me and my babies.  I never had to "sleep train" Logan, he just seemed to start sleeping through the night on his own around four and a half months.  Olive and Axl seemed to start creating bad sleeping habits around four months.  The "experts" call this the "four month sleep regression."  According to the experts, the sleep cycles of babies begin to change and mimic those of an adult around four months.  This is when babies often begin to create bad sleep habits or associations.  In Olive and Axl's case the association has been the need to be nursed, rocked or walked back to sleep.  So Axl has been waking every one or two hours needing my help to get back to sleep.   At first it wasn't so bad, I would nurse him, or rock him and he would fall asleep and I would put him back in his bed. Then I would nurse or rock him, he would fall asleep but as soon as I tried to lay him down he would wake up crying again.   Then I became lazy and just put him in bed with me to nurse while I slept. That worked for a few weeks, and then he began to get really restless around four or five am and not be able to go back to sleep at all, even though he was trying to.   This just doesn't work for me.  I have had to teach him how to soothe himself back to sleep, and even though it has been hard, it is working.

So how do I sleep train? Basically I start a bedtime routine and then put Axl down to bed awake.  If he cries, I go in his room after five minutes and give him his binky and remind him that he is okay.  Then I leave.  If he cries again, I go in after ten minutes and do the same thing and then fifteen minutes.  I continue to do this every fifteen minutes until he falls asleep.  I also determine when he usually wakes to eat and feed him about 30 minutes before that time so I know he isn't hungry.  So our plan has been that i put him down at 7:30 with feedings at 12 and 4.

The first night he cried for 30 minutes before falling asleep,  Then I woke him at 12 to feed him and when I laid him down at 12:30 he started crying.  He cried for two and a half hours then whined for 30 minutes before falling asleep.  Then I woke him at four to feed him and when i laid him down he slept until 7:45 and woke up very happy "talking" in his crib.  The next night he cried for 20 minutes and then not at all during the night.  The third night he cried for 15 minutes and now he doesn't cry at all.  The last two nights I have gotten lazy and instead of waking him to feed him I have waited for him to wake up...bad mistake, he now needs me to nurse him again every time he wakes.  Sigh.  I guess I will have to start setting my alarm for 12 and four again.

Once we get this down the next steps are...add a feeding at 9:00 pm, eliminate the midnight feeding and push back the four am feeding to five.  That way I will be able to sleep from 9:30 to 5:00 in FOUR shorts weeks when I go back to work.  This plan is somewhat comical to me, because honestly I am horrible at timed/scheduled feedings.   I would rather just feed my baby when he is hungry.  Hopefully soon he will decide he isn't hungry in the middle of the night.

On another note, I really wish my house wouldn't make funny noises at night.  Really freaks me out.  I don't like nursing Axl in his room in the middle of the night because I feel so isolated from everyone.  And with all the white noise machines we have in our house, I feel like Scott wouldn't hear me if I needed him.  In fact, I know he wouldn't hear me.  He can sleep through anything.   I usually get up and feed Axl in front of the computer while I blog surf...I would use the time to update my blog, but I have a hard time typing with one hand.  However, this also freaks me out because the screen is so bright I can't see anything except the computer screen.   I think I am sleep deprived, I am not usually so afraid of the dark.  Last night I was having nightmares and yelling in my sleep. Scott had to wake me up.  It was one of those dreams you have where you know you are dreaming, but you can't seem to wake up or move.

One of these days I will sneak in and take a picture of my baby sleeping so I can post it here.  He never naps unless I am laying with him so sleeping picture ops are few and far between.