Sleep Training

Okay- so our wonderful Caden has been a high needs (the PC term for fussy) baby in some ways for the first few months. I haven’t posted much about his fussiness, since that is not too exciting to read about. And who wants to admit that they may have fallen in to “accidental parenting”?!?! One of our big issues over the months has been Caden’s sleep patterns and habits. We always thought of him as a restless sleeper and a baby who “fights” falling to sleep. Sometimes I would need to swaddle him, rock him, nurse him, play white noise all in a dark room to get him to fall asleep. And then he would often wake up after putting him in his crib. At night we got into the habit of letting him co-sleep with us at times, to be sure he got some good sleep. He seemed to sleep much better right next to me nursing off and on through the night. During the day I would often have him nap on my lap, as he slept better there. We felt like the more sleep he got, the less cranky awake time he would have, so we were doing whatever we could to help him sleep. But those things were clearly turning into bad habits.

According to many sleep experts, 4 months is the age to start sleep training, so last night we began this process! There are SO many different theories on sleep training, so Dave did some book research and I did some Internet research. (Since I could surf the Net while Caden slept on my lap, but it was hard to turn pages quietly…) We combined a couple of the sleep training techniques that we felt comfortable with and came up with a game plan. Some experts are adamant against letting babies cry themselves to sleep- noting that crying release a stress chemical (Cortisol) into babies brains. Others say that babies will feel abandoned if left to “Cry It Out”. Because Caden often cries before going to sleep anyway (because he fights sleep), we thought some crying now will actually mean less cumulative crying if he can learn to soothe himself to sleep. But instead of just leaving him completely to “Cry It Out,” we go in to his room at various time intervals to soothe him, let him know we are here and not abandoning him.

So last night was the 1st night we were able to get some good sleep with Caden sleeping fairly well in his crib! YAY! There was a bit of crying, but it was not nearly as much as I had feared it could be. There may be a few more days of hurdles and crying, but he seems to be learning how to soothe himself to sleep fairly well. He has a little soft blanket with a stuffed animal head that we have introduced him to and slept with for the week before the training. He really seem to find comfort in his “ducky”. Wish us luck in the upcoming days!