Sleep Training - Week 1

Day 1 - What better time to start than the beginning of the week. I fed Logan at 2 o'clock, and at 3 I've just put him down in his cot. I stayed with him for a little while and he seemed pretty calm but not overly tired. His monitor is on and I left the room. He started grumbling so back in I went to soothe him, I didn't pick him up, I just left him in his cot. He calmed down again and I left the room. This happened another twice then I decided when he started grumbling I would just leave him to 'cry it out'. Eventually his grumbling turned into crying and I left him for a full 15 minutes before I couldn't take it anymore. By the time I went back into his room he had gotten himself so worked up that he was sobbing and his face was red from crying so hard. There and then I decided letting him cry it out would not work for us!

Day 2 - I decided to start a bit earlier this time and take a different approach. After his second feed at 11 o'clock I put him down in his cot. I read him 3 books, put the dreaded dummy in (the dummy story is for another post). When I thought he was calm enough I left the room. When he started grumbling I went straight back in to soothe him then left the room. When he began grumbling again I went back in and decided to stay in. I proceeded to put his dummy in every time he spat it out. I stayed nice and calm, keeping my voice low, chatting away trying to keep him calm. I could tell he was getting drowsy so decided just to stick with it and while stroking his face with one of his blankets, he finally drifted off to sleep! I felt like the messiah. I honestly was so pleased with myself. It was the first time he had ever fallen asleep in his cot and I couldn't have been more pleased with myself. It might have been a minuscule victory. But it was a victory none-the-less.

Day 3 & 4 - Were pretty much the same. After my victory the day before I wasn't doing to get cocky. I knew fine well this day would be a fail, there was no way I would be lucky enough to have two good days in a row and I was correct. After an hour of persevering I could tell it just wasn't going to happen and we abandoned the nap for the day. Day 4 followed the same routine. However I was still taking these as victory's. He may not have slept but he spent an hour in his cot. He wasn't getting nearly as upset as he was the first day. He was content with lying down for an hour.


Day 5 - Another fail but this was our fault this time. We had an engineer come to install Fiber Optic, and he had to turn up just as we'd put Logan down for a nap. So we abandoned it pretty earlier on, but I paid for it that evening. I took him up to my mums for a while and he was just a little grumpy arse all evening. So even though he hadn't been sleeping during day 3 & 4, lying down for an hour had definitely helped his mood slightly.

Day 6 - Was our biggest breakthrough. We followed the routine: feed, into his sleeping bag, into his cot, 3 books, a little shushing then we left the room. I went back in to soothe him once, Gavin went in to calm him a second time then left the room and after about 10 minutes the monitor went very quiet. I thought it was too good to be true but I quietly poked my head through the door and sure enough he was asleep. Only problem was he had his blanket covering his face. Sensible Mummy overrode Mummy-that-just-wants-her-baby-to-nap and I gently pulled it off his face and he didn't even notice! He stayed asleep for a whole 90 minutes! Maybe we can make this work?

And someone was a very happy boy after his nap!

Its day 1 of week 2 and I am currently typing this as we have a napping baby! Surely we haven't nailed this in only a week? Better check back next Monday to see how this week pans out!

Kirsty x