sleep training: volume two.

i am trying to break up these sleep training posts so they're not insanely long and hard to get through, but this is still insanely long.  sorry.

the first thing we did to help finn's nighttime sleep was to create a daytime schedule.
doesn't sound like it makes any sense, but it really helped us. especially because i was completely unscheduled before.

this is what our days look like now (give or take 30 minutes):

7:30 am- rise and shine!
  (kim west's book suggests doing a "dramatic wakeup" where you throw open the curtains and turn on the lights and say good morning and make a big to-do.  this helps to let baby know that it's time to get up for real, whereas if he woke up in the middle of the night we would just say shhh it's night night time and he would know it's not time to get up)
after a diaper change and a lot of morning kisses, finn stands in his jumperoo to play with toys and watch his "morning time songs"- a series of 6 sesame street songs we have on a dvd.  he watches them on the computer and plays with his toys.  we do this every single morning.  and he loves it every single morning.  it also buys me 20 minutes to get dressed, make the bed, and put on some make up. (the dvd was in target's $5 section and it's called "follow that bird" it's a full length movie but there's an option to just play the songs from the movie and finn is captivated by them.  i definitely recommend it!)

8 am- we head downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast.
finn normally walks around in his walker and plays while i make coffee and eat my own breakfast, and then i put him in his high chair to eat his around 8:30.  we normally spend the next hour cleaning up the dishes, playing in the kitchen with magnets and tupperware, and singing songs.

9:30 am- morning nap.
i read in the sample schedule in one of the books that babies would be ready for naps at this time and i didn't believe finn was one of them.  but sure enough, he is ready for a nap by 9:30 and i was just missing the signals.  normally when he would get fussy around this time i would just think he was bored with playing in the kitchen.  but nope, he was tired. we head upstairs and we read the same book before every nap.  it's a john deere touch and feel tractor book.  it's very short, but it gets the job done.  i nurse him or give him a bottle, rock him in my arms and sing one song, and then put him in his bed awake, with his pacifier, his woobie (an aden and anais swaddle blanket) and his lovey (a blabla baby doll fox).  it takes him a bit longer to fall asleep for his morning nap than his afternoon nap.  sometimes he rolls around and talks for awhile... 20 minutes or so.  before reading the books and embarking on this routine, i would have thought that meant he wasn't tired, and i would have gotten him back out of his bed.  but now i know that he's just burning off some steam before a nap that he really needs.

i will write more about how we achieved naps under the afternoon nap time slot. 

11 a.m.- wakey wakey.
the morning nap is usually about an hour or an hour and a half.  eventually we will drop it altogether and just do a nice solid afternoon nap.  when finn wakes up this is normally our "errand" window.  if i need to run out to the store we go now.  or if it's nice out we go out for a walk or play outside.  i try to be really interactive and hands on with him during the day.

12 noon- lunch time.
finn eats baby food still as well as finger foods now.  he is picky with finger food textures.  he will eat pureed avocado or banana, but he doesn't like to pick them up and eat pieces of them.  he doesn't like the slimy texture.  he will eat anything dry... pieces of chicken, raisins, goldfish, puffs, pasta (as long as it's not wet), waffles, crackers etc. 

after lunch we normally keep playing.  finn is good at playing in his walker for little spurts so i can get some things done.  we also read books, play instruments, play with normal baby toys, go outside, play with tucker, etc.

2 pm- nap time.
this is the big nap.  we follow the same routine as the morning nap.  i get a bottle ready or nurse him, we read the nap time book, i rock him for the length of one song, and put him in his bed awake.  he normally falls asleep in about 10 minutes, and sleeps for 2-2.5 hours.  it's bananas awesome.

i first used elizabeth pantley's nap method.  finn normally woke up after 40 minutes, so at 30 minutes into the nap i would sit outside of his room and wait to hear signs of him stirring.  as soon as i heard him beginning to wake up, i would go in, give him his pacifier and try to shush him back into sleep.  if that didn't work right away i would pick him up and nurse him until he was almost completely asleep and then put him back down.  this worked the first few days and he would normally sleep for another hour after the 40 minute wake up, but then i started to phase it out because it wasn't ideal to wait outside his room for little noises.

i tried the kim west nap method next, and i only did it one time, and then after that finn started napping on his own an hour or more in the morning and two hours or more in the afternoon.  i think it was a combination of the two methods and also the routine of the day that helped him get these down. 

kim west calls the 40 minute naps "disaster naps" because it's just enough to take the edge off and make them feel refreshed, but it's not a full sleep cycle and it's not enough for their little brains and bodies.  she says to put your baby in his crib and sit next to his crib in a chair during the nap time.  if you don't want to do this you can do the "check in" method where you go in every 5-10-15 minutes.  but i used the chair method the one time i did it.  you put your baby in the crib sleepy, and sit in the chair and can shush him and soothe him with words and intermittently get up and pat him.  if he gets upset you can pick him up and bounce him or soothe him and then put him back down before he is totally asleep.  once he's asleep you leave the room and start a one hour nap clock.  if the baby wakes up after an hour, great, go get him! if he doesn't make it the full hour, you have to start the clock over again.  this is what happened with finn the one time i did it.  he woke up after about 25 or 30 minutes.  i went in and shushed him and rocked him and put him back down but he wasn't having it.  he was pissed.  i sat in my little chair with my eyes closed and whispered soothing words and prayed quietly to myself while he hollered at me.  it was a pissed off what the heck are you doing woman holler.  it wasn't a sad or needy holler.  he would lay down and be quiet and play for 5 or 10 minutes and then he'd get up and roll around and holler some more.  he did this for an hour.  he never fell asleep.  after an hour, i picked him up.  when he wasn't yelling, but during one of the little periods of calmness.  i pretended he had a complete nap, we did a dramatic wake up, and continued on the daily schedule.  the next time i put him down for a nap, i did not sit in the chair because i thought it might be a little distracting for him.  i left the room and went in to check on him after 5 minutes but he never cried and went right to sleep.  he has been taking good naps ever since then.  weird.

4 p.m.- wakey wakey.
finn is always really happy and cute after this good nap.  he almost always wakes up playing and talking in his crib. he normally nurses after this nap. after a diaper change, i take him down to the kitchen for a little snack in his walker (normally puffs or something simple like that) and then we play or run an errand or two before dinner time.

6 p.m.- dinner.
if finn sleeps until 4:30 i normally push it back a little.  i try to feed finn something really filling for dinner... like pureed pasta and chicken with vegetables or even thick "grown up" oatmeal with milk and raisins.  something that will stick to him.  he is kind of obsessed with steel cut oatmeal as well as potatoes.  they are his favorite.  he eats grown man sized portions.  he should have been born in 18th century ireland.

6:30 p.m.- bathtime.
finn gets a bath every night.  it's part of our routine, and he loves the bath.  he jumps up and down next to the tub while the water runs.  it's really cute.  we play in the tub and sing bathtime songs and normally billy gets home about halfway through and helps out.  after bath and pajamas, we kind of look for signs of how tired finn really is.  if he is still in a good mood and playful we will play quietly in his room with blocks or quiet toys for 15 minutes to help him burn off some energy and get some quality daddy time in.  we keep lights dim during this time and don't use loud voices.  when he starts showing signs of sleepiness we move on to the bedtime routine.  if he is obviously tired right after his bath, we skip the quiet playing altogether.

7:15 p.m.- books bottle and bed.
finn drinks a big bottle before bed.  about 6 ounces, which is a lot for him.  he normally drinks it while we read his bedtime books.  we read the same two books every night while we all lay in our bed with dim lights.   we read "the very hungry caterpillar" and then "good night moon".  we tell him that we're reading our bedtime books and then it's night night time.  he really seems to like this routine and settles in very quickly while we're reading.  if i don't pick him up right away now after the last page of goodnight moon he reaches for me like "what are you waiting for woman, bedtime!".  we give kisses and i rock him in my arms and sing one song (with his woobie and his lovey) and then he lays down and goes to sleep by 7:30.

for the first week or so billy and i sat in the chair next to finn's bed until he fell asleep.  we shushed him and patted him and said "night night time" if he got upset.  but mostly we just sat quietly with our eyes closed so he knew we were there while he settled himself in.  one of the suggestions in both books was to put your baby's binky in his hand instead of in his mouth.  we did that and it was helpful because finn learned quickly how to "re-bink" himself in the night. 

there were a couple of nights in the beginning where finn would fuss a little bit before he settled in.  i started out picking him up right away and trying to soothe him before i put him back in his crib, but when i would do this it did not soothe finn at all.  he would writhe around in my arms and fuss just the same.  i realized he didn't really want me to hold him, he was trying to figure it out on his own.  so i sat in my little chair and prayed that he would go to sleep quickly.  i would shush him quietly here and there.  it was comforting for me that he knew i was there, and i could also tell that his cries were never desperate needy cries, just sometimes a little frustrated.

we actually did the first two nights of sleep training at my parents house in md over new years weekend, and the third night when we were home was when finn started going down without any tears right away on his own.  i think being in his own crib helped.  a few nights ago he had a random fussy night and we did the chair thing again, but other than that one whoops he has been totally fine.  we don't sit in his room anymore, we just put him down and stand outside the door for a few seconds and say shush, and then we leave and he's asleep within 5 minutes or so.

i'm going to conclude this sleep training blog for now and post a third one on our middle of the night routine and our feelings on sleep training in general.  i have to be honest and say that i am still struggling a little with the middle of the night routine.  but more on that next time.  thanks for hanging in!