Sleep Training Complete
I have been the main person sleep training our 1 year old son L. My wife did the two older kids and she deserves the break from this rough period. It is emotionally taxing, especially since we do the cry-it-out method.
When I was first nap training L, he would scream for a long time. Many hours at times and would sleep really poorly. That luckily lasted a few short weeks (in hindsight…it was long when I was going through it). My wife co-slept with L at night when he woke up from falling asleep by himself. Now was the time when co-sleeping needed to end and I was optimistic that we could figure it out quickly.
The first night went well enough where L only woke up a few times that night to cry. He only cried less than 5 minutes before falling asleep each time. It did keep me up after each session, but it was better than my wife not getting any sleep at night with him recently (which prompted this shift to fully sleep train L). The second night went even better and as the nights went on, he was crying less and less. He got it so quickly and I am proud of my little guy!
Nap training was the hardest when looking back. I’m glad that was true and as he slept by himself at night, he doesn’t scream when I leave the room either anymore. He really knows the routine and nights have become more enjoyable. The best thing is that I could do this for my wife because she was having a lot of anxiety about this situation.
It’s a big adjustment for her as well - stopping the breastfeeding, not having L to cuddle with at night, but most importantly, getting some quality sleep on her own. Her sleep is getting better slowly as her hormones regulate and I hope that in a few months, she will feel more and more like her old self. I’m so glad to go through this with L and that he is so great at adjusting and letting me be the person to help him with these changes! I know I’ll look back at this moment fondly since it wasn’t as hard as nap training. I’m very grateful that L is fully sleep trained now and we will all get much better sleep because of it (I hope!)!
