sleep training: night 1

Well, we survived. Not sure why Rose slept through the night for three nights during the week but then decided last night to wake up at 4am. But we had already decided that we were officially going to "sleep train" starting on Friday night, so that's what we did. Let me give you a little background before I tell you more about how "night 1" went for us.

So there are 3 basic methods for sleep training:

1. The first is to turn off the monitor and just let her cry until she falls back asleep (aka "cry it out"). Tempting in theory, but there's no way I could actually do that in practice! We've worked so hard to help Rose trust that we love her and are there to meet her needs, and that approach just seemed antithetical to our parenting style. Besides, what if her arm was caught in the crib again, or she had lost her lovey, or she needed reassurance after a bad dream? Besides, most doctors don't recommend this approach simply because it's so hard for the parents to administer consistently, and consistency is key with sleep training.

2. On the other end of the spectrum is the "Pick-up / Put-down" (aka "no cry," aka "camping out") approach. Here the parent camps out next to the bed and picks up the baby when she cries, then sets her down. Then picks her up if she continues to fuss, then puts her down. Pick up, put down. Over and over and over.  Definitely tempting to have a "no cry" solution, but the drawback is that it can take hours and weeks for this system to work, and it runs counter to the approach we've already been doing (and that has been so effective at bedtime) of letting her cry/talk/fuss for 10 minutes before we go to her.

3. So that brings us to our preferred method: the "modified cry it out" (aka "controlled comforting") approach. It's explained in more detail here and here, but basically it involves giving baby a brief reassurance at progressively longer intervals, in the hopes that she will learn we are still there but that crying at night will not "earn" anything more than a brief check-in. Kind of like we had been doing with bedtime from the very beginning.

The specifics of our plan were as follows: we would wait 10 minutes before going to her room, then Mike (not me, since she associates me with food at night, and thus I could just upset her more) would go in to check on her, give her a lovey, and tell her "I love you, Rose, but it's nighttime. It's time for sleep. We'll see you in the morning" and then leave. Then we'd wait 15 minutes before the same reassurance, then 20 minutes, the 25, then 30, etc.  Whew. We had a plan.

Last night Rose woke at 4:20am. Mike and I shared a brief "seriously?!?" moment, then settled in with the clock. The first thing I learned was that I think I'm waiting 10 minutes before going to her at night (I know I definitely do that in the evening, and just assumed I was in the middle of the night too), but since I don't usually watch the clock I definitely wasn't actually waiting that long. Sigh. Her cries got more frantic, then...silence. After 9 minutes she stopped crying. Hallelujah!

Mike and I both drifted off to sleep, relieved that our first night of sleep training had been relatively painless for all.

And then the screams started. I looked at the clock and it was now 4:35. Ugh. So now what? Should we start over again at 10 minutes? Should we wait 15? Should we consider this the same "episode" and just check on her immediately? We made a split-second decision to wait 5 minutes before proceeding.

It was torture! At 4:40 Mike went in to check on her (arms in the crib? check!), give her the lovey (check!), and tell her the short message we had previously decided on. She quieted a bit, then started howling again after he left the room and it was clear that he wasn't going to feed her.

Fifteen minutes later (4:55), he did it again. It was torture. Torture, I say! At that point we turned down the monitor until we could barely hear her.

And then, at 5:05, we heard blessed silence. 

I laid awake for quite some time, worried that we had scarred Rose for life (despite my knowledge of recent research in this area) and berating myself for being a cold, heartless mother. But eventually my snoring joined Mike's, and it lasted until Rose woke up at about 7am, as per usual. I bolted up and into her bedroom, and she was usual chipper self. Whew! Yay, Rose! What a relief that she didn't seem to be bearing any immediate grudges.

So we're one night closer to having effectively sleep trained. Consistency is key, especially since crying can be worse on the 2nd or 3rd days (i.e., an "extinction burst"), so please send good sleep vibes to the three of us! I'll keep you posted about the next few nights...