Sleep Training Follow Up

I am able to write this post right now because my angelface babychild laid her precious head right down and went to sleep without so much as a peep all by herself. Operation: Sleepeasy — major success.

We dealt with only 2 nights of extended crying/fussing. The first night was just under half an hour and the second went for nearly 90 minutes. I attribute the 2nd night’s extra crankiness to my trying to also train her naps (as suggested) with 0 success. So she was completely overtired and looking like she was ready for bed at like 6. Which is way too early. 

Honestly I was half-thinking to give it a break after night 2 because I just felt so bad and I was expecting the fuss-time to decrease as we went, not increase by like 100%. But we pushed through. 

I chose to skip nap-training until we got nights situated because it seemed to be making it harder for her in general. Fuss-time (I call it this because she was almost never all out screaming. And if she was, it only lasted a few minutes at most) began decreasing drastically over the next few nights with the continued use of a bedtime wind-down routine. From 15 to 5 to 2 minutes, all the way down to tonight where she didn’t make a single peep.

She has also begun sleeping much more soundly and longer through the night. I’m afraid to say it out loud, so’s not to jinx it, but I think she is beginning to prefer her crib to our bed — which is HUGE. 

Over the past few days I’ve begun with naps, but we have been busy and sick so many naps have been in the car or with momma. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

In short — I give The Sleepeasy Solution two giant thumbs up. It was a lifesaver for my back and my sanity. Now we’re all getting a more restful night’s sleep.

Notes from our experience:

Next time, I’m starting this process before baby can pull up on the bars of the crib. The first few nights I think she got herself so worked up while standing she had a hard time getting back to her bottom + laying down + falling asleep.

I’m still not 100% sure what to do when she gets up at night to nurse and I need to put her back in her crib. She doesn’t really get up at a regular time, and doesn’t get up every night, so setting my alarm probably won’t help me. I think I have to try just feeding her and laying her down awake as I normally would and just see what happens.