Monday, April 15, 2013

Successful Sleep Trainers, Please Advise

What's been goin' on over here?  Lots of talk about sleep training sweet G. We plan to embark on the adventure this weekend and I hope I come out on the other side as a well-rested mommy with a happy, equally well-rested little girl. G is 4.5 months right now, so we are hoping this age is okay to begin sleep training. Please say yes.

We have successfully eliminated one of her two nighttime feedings from a bottle and now she only gets about 4 oz at night.  Not much at all.  So, right now we're eliminating an ounce each night from the remaining bottle and that alone may help her sleep better once it's cut out completely.

The only other things that seem to be getting in the way of her sleeping through the night are her associations with being swaddled and having her pacifier replaced multiple times each night and occasionally during naps.  It isn't horrible, but it's an association I do not want to continue much longer.  She is able to fall asleep without our help, in her crib in her own room, but she almost always needs to be swaddled in her swaddle bag with her pacifier.  Once the paci falls out, she can usually sleep fine until she stirs and realizes her paci is missing.

I've been more interested in sleep training than my husband, but I have a strong feeling that I'm going to be the weak one when we're actually carrying it out.  We plan to start Thursday night.

I'm hopeful that G will learn to fall asleep and stay asleep without her pacifier, but at the same time I'm nervous.  How long will it take her? Will she cry so much and so forcefully that I won't be able to take it?  I don't want to give in and replace her pacifier, or the whole training process will be worthless. I'm praying that we can remain strong!

For those of you who have tried sleep training and found it to be successful, do you have any insights, advice or stories that would be helpful?  If so, please share! Oh, and please no judgement.

1 comment:

  1. Hi! Sleep training - oh a subject near and dear to my heart. The following is just stuff that worked for us - take it or leave it as I know everyone's situation is so very different. 1st recommendation (again what worked for us - maybe different for you) - the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Mark Weisbuth. Love, love, love, love this book!!! Recommended by our pediatrician.

    Also, we didn't start sleep training until our daughter, E, was 9 months old. I haven't heard of anyone that starts earlier than 6 months, but that is just my experience. Looking back, we could have started earlier than 9 months - she was probably ready around 7 momths, but it is what it is and it has been great ever since. She is 15 months old and just transitioned this week from 2 naps (morning and afternoon) to one longer nap around 12:30 and she sleeps consistently 7pm - 7:30am. She has been waking up a couple times a week at night most likely because she is teething, but I usually just change her diaper and rock her for a few minutes and then she is back to sleep. But yeah, when she was 5 months old, I couldn't imagine 12-13 hours of solid sleep a night!

    Umm...the whole pacifier thing - we had the same issue and really, it gets so much easier when they can find it and put it back in their mouth. Our daughter goes to bed with 3 pacifiers and inevitably one will fall out and I can hear her / see her on the monitor scrambling around (still half-asleep) trying to find one - it is actually really cute. But yeah, with swaddling this would be tough. Does G need to have her arms swaddled? My daughter didn't like the swaddles that restricted her arms, so we used the Halo sleep sacks and you can wrap them tightly around the middle section, but their arms stay free and so it is kind of like a mini-swaddle and that worked for us. But at 15 months E still goes down with her 3 pacifiers (and she only gets her pacifiers at night or during a nap) and they really are here security blanket if you want to call them as she doesn't have any other security type comfort things in her crib. It definitely is how she self-soothes back to sleep.

    I hope things go well!

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