Sleep Training Day 1

Feeling Guilty:What I thought would be one of the hardest things to do as a new mom was actually quite easy.  Well not exactly stress free, but less stressful than what I had been doing for the past 4 months. Believe me the day of sleep training I had a pit in my stomach, I was nervous and felt guilty. Would it work? How could I leave my son crying? Would he think I was abandoning him?  How could I be so selfish, just because I didn't want to rock him to sleep or get up several times in the middle of the night.  But it wasn't just about me, it was about him, and it was about my marriage.  I saw him struggling everyday to sleep, I had to carry him in sling so he would stay asleep.  If I stopped walking he would wake up. He would scream for hours at night  I would start at 6 pm and rock him to sleep and then trick him into his crib, sometimes he would wake up immediately others after 20 minutes and this would continue on and off until about 8-8:30pm when he would finally conk out.  I was tired, sweaty, hungry because I didn't eat dinner and mad at my husband if I was by myself.  Or if we were tag teaming we were both exhausted and had no energy for each other. The longest he ever slept was 4 hours then waking up sometimes every hour.  Fine for newborn, but he is almost 4 months..12lbs physically able to sleep through the night. 

 The 3 Day Sleep Solution-Crying It Out-Extinction:While there are other methods...my son didn't respond well to them.  He is a strong spirited personality.  He seemed more agitated if I would go back in or if I tried to pat and shush him.

The 1st night: After a bath and a feeding he started his evening crying. I kissed him goodnight and we put him down at 5:40pm and left the room.  As I watched from the video monitor I could see him struggling.  He cried and cried, but not more than usual.  It was just heartwrenching because this time I wasn't doing anything to soothe him.  I was so sad. But I was committed to seeing it through because if you stop what is the point of putting your baby through that and they learn nothing.   They say the most important thing is consistency and with CIO you see a difference in 3 days.   After about 40 minutes we went into burp him because of all his crying and put him back down.  He was asleep by 6:50pm which is still about 1 hour and 10 minutes, but its about the same time it would take for me to rock him to sleep and he would usually wake up.  He didn't wake up until 9:45pm then he started to flip on his belly and fell asleep at 10:30 and stayed asleep until 4:45pm.  That was the longest he ever slept.  We fed him at 4:50am and he was back down at 5:06am, by 5:11 he was asleep and slept until 8 am.  Wow!

1st Naps:  They say naps are the hardest.  So his first nap was at 9:15am .  It only took 17 minutes for him to settle and he slept for 2 hours and 10 minutes.  That's longer than when I would carry him in the sling.  His second nap at 1:35pm and he didn't cry at all and it took him 3 minutes to fall asleep and napped for 1 hr. 25 minutes.  I actually had to wake him so it wouldn't cut into his feed time or third nap.  I can't believe it -I have never woken my baby up- ever! His third nap was at 4:17pm  and lasted about 30 minutes-which I also woke him up so he would be tired enough to go to bed for the night at 6 pm.  I'm still in shock, but this was only Day 1.