Learning to Sleep

Two weeks ago, we decided, now that she’s 9 months old, it’s time for our daughter to learn how to sleep.

We tried teaching her at 6 months, by letting her cry it out, but it ended with both or us in tears, so we decided to wait until she was a little older. Now, she’s eating more solids during the day, and she’s figured out crawling and standing, why not sleeping? She was waking every two hours like clockwork.

We decided to try one week of gentle sleep training. The plan was that we would only feed her if it had been five hours or more since she had last eaten, if she woke up in between, her daddy would go in and settle her down. Before our plan, I had been going in and feeding her every time she woke. But, over the last few weeks, she’s gradually started eating less and less at night, which has convinced me that she doesn’t need to be up every 2 hours. She takes a long time to settle down if I go in because, for the last 9 months, anytime I go in at night, she’s been fed. So, for 6 long nights, one of us would go in every two hours, tuck her back in and leave. We were hoping that by leaving her in her crib, and not offering her a bottle, she’d realize that it wasn’t worth waking up.

Well, It turns out that we must be pretty entertaining in the middle of the night, because after 6 nights, she was still waking every 2 hours. So, on Monday night, we decided it was time to try tough love sleep training. We moved our mattress downstairs, in the hopes of getting more sleep. We decided that if she woke before 5 hours, we would leave her and let her cry it out. Everyone I’ve talked to about crying-it-out has said it’s a really awful 2 or 3 nights, but then, it improves quickly.

The first night, there were 4 times we had to let her cry. The first one was the hardest, because I wasn’t sure if she’d settle herself, or how long it would take. I watched the clock while my little girl screamed like the world was ending. At 5 minutes, Steffan and I started talking about whether someone should go tuck her in, but as we were deciding, all of sudden, she was quiet. After that, it was much easier, because we knew that she could settle herself, and the crying wouldn’t last forever. The other 3 times, there was 5 minutes or less of crying.

Last night (night #2), we again slept downstairs, I fed her at 11:30, she woke up at 2:30, and we let her cry, and then, she didn’t wake again until 6:30.

It’s amazing how even 4 consecutive hours of sleep, when you’re used to only 90 minutes can make the world seem like a much better place.

Tonight, we're going to move back up to our bedroom, cross our fingers, and hope for the best. Already, there’s a huge improvement. Not only are we happier and more rested, but she even seems happier.