Sleep Training
I’ve been waiting to write this one because it’s a long long journey to get to the right destination. We didn’t sleep train my youngest one year old son L until recently. My other two kids, we sleep train them at around six months. My wife did most of the sleep training and I occasionally helped put the older two kids to bed at night. This time it was mainly on me to sleep train L.
The main reason why I was in charge of sleep training was that L was less likely to cry if I put him down for a nap. The delta between having me around and not having me around is much smaller than if my wife did the same thing. I had also been putting him down for most of his naps and at night because I was always around. We had already shifted him to one nap a day because he was struggling to stay asleep at night when he had two. That was already a rough transition, but we finally got in a rhythm. The sleep training started about two weeks ago and it was a disaster.
The first day of sleep training, I got L ready for his first nap of the day. I put his sleep sack on and gave him his little stuffy. I read until he was tired and put him down. He oscillated between sleeping and crying for almost 3 hours. It wasn’t good sleep at all and he started his first nap by crying for almost 30 minutes. We were going with the route where you don’t go in to comfort the kids because it worked really well for the other two. This was making me second guess our decision and when it was clear he wouldn’t get any sleep, I went in and grabbed him.
The night of the first day went a lot better. I followed a similar routine and put on his sleep sack, gave him his stuffy, and read to him until he was really tired. He ended up crying for less than 10 minutes and went to sleep afterwards. He slept until the morning and it was great. What was a disaster during the day, it was much smoother at night.
The second day of sleep training was a disaster, but less than the first. I put L down for a nap and he again oscillated between sleeping and crying for about two hours. Luckily, he got almost an hour of sleep in one stretch towards the middle of the period. At night, he fell asleep in 15 minutes with crying and woke up about an hour later. He cried for 3 minutes and fell back asleep. Throughout the night though, he woke up almost every hour because he was overtired from the last two days of sleep training. Poor baby. It was hard for me to know I kept having to do this to him, but I know it’ll get better.
The next few days started to finally even out where L was getting larger and larger chunks of sleep at night. He was so exhausted because he wasn’t sleeping well for his naps. On Day 7, I started work and my wife needed to do nap time. I think if I was around and kept doing nap time with L, he would have figured it out, but the change disrupted the afternoon nap for him a bit.
It wasn’t until Day 8 that he got almost an hour nap in after periods of crying. We shifted to only leaving him about two hours for his naps and didn’t bank on him crying himself to sleep during the naps. Regardless of how he slept (which was much better than the first 7 days), we grabbed him after that two hour window.
By Day 9, L was easily going to sleep at night after a minute (or sometimes 2-5 minutes) of crying. It was getting easier to put him to sleep and knowing that he wouldn’t cry long. Afternoon naps were still hard and it wasn’t until about Day 14 (two weeks into sleep training) that L would get larger chunks for his naps in.
On Day 22, L started daycare and it was a big day for him (and for us!). He only slept about 30 minutes for his nap but the next day, he got an hour and a half nap in during the afternoon. Nights were getting much easier with him and although he still cried, it was usually less than a minute. He was knocking right out.
We are about a month out from sleep training now and it has been quite the ride. It was so hard starting the sleep training and I remember I was so nervous to make any noises in the house because I didn’t want to wake L up. I didn’t want to hear up food in the microwave, clang any pots, or close any doors too loudly. It was just a lot of sleep tracking and writing down what we did, how long he cried, and thinking about adjustments. I didn’t eat very well those first few days, but when things settled out, I could finally relax because L was getting his sleep.
I’m so proud of him for figuring out the routine and adjusting to all of the changes we had to make. He has been flexible with even some naps in the car or on me. I got to cuddle him to sleep last weekend in the car and it made me realize how much I miss being nap trapped. I guess grass is (sometimes) greener on the other wise, but I know this new normal is what is best for all of us. He gets good quality sleep and we get some extra time to do what we need to do (usually chores!). Grateful for better sleep!
