sleep training: volume one.

ooof.

this week we began "sleep training" with finn.

here's a little back story:

by around five months of age, finn was waking up about once or twice a night.  i considered this a good thing.  i didn't mind waking up a couple of times with him because he just nursed and went right back to sleep.  normally the second time he woke up i would bring him back into bed with us and billy and i were a happy cosleeping family.  we loved waking up to his little coos and immediately forgot any inconvenience the nighttime feedings may have brought us.

then at six months, finn started getting his recurrent ear infections.  he was sick for the entire fall season.  all of our sleep suffered.  he woke up very often, 6-8 times a night, and when he had an ear infection he was always in pain.  nursing seemed to be the only thing that soothed him.  he couldn't lay down flat, even when we elevated his crib mattress on a slope.  we started with noise machines, lullaby cd's, constant rocking and shushing, taking turns holding him upright in bed for him to sleep, having him sleep in his carseat, driving him to sleep, carrying him in a baby sling around the house until he fell asleep, and many other crazy things.  for three months it was pretty rough going in the sleep department.  we basically just did anything we could to survive.

after finn's ear tube surgery, i hoped that he would magically sleep through the night.  he didn't.  instead, i found that waking up every couple of hours to eat had become a habit, or a "sleep crutch".   in my readings i learned that every human being goes through sleep cycles, including periods of light awakening every night.  normally when someone like you or i experience a light awakening, we just roll over in bed, perhaps adjust our pillow, and go back to sleep.  but whenever finn experienced one, he woke up altogether.  we realized he didn't know how to resettle himself and put himself back to sleep.  he always need me to nurse him and/or needed us to bounce and shush him back to sleep.

honestly, we still didn't really mind.  in december we were waking up four or five times a night with him.  but it didn't seem so bad, because nursing him very briefly always put him right back to sleep, and it was nothing in comparison to the agony we went through in the prior months with the ear infections.  we kept him in bed with us a lot and honestly i think we really just treasured him being little and healthy and tried not to think about the frequent wakings and feedings.  they didn't bother us too much.  people would always ask me how finn slept, i would say that he didn't sleep well, and then i always got the wary eye followed by "you know he's old enough for you to let him cry a little bit now."  i hated hearing that, and crying it out just wasn't an option for billy and i.  we couldn't stand to hear him upset.  so we did everything we could to soothe him back to sleep at night, even if it made us tired.

then over the holidays, finn took somewhat of a turn.  instead of it taking five, ten, sometimes fifteen minutes to swing and shush him to sleep, it started taking 25, 35, 45 minutes.  and then once we put him down, he would only sleep 30 minutes before he was up again looking to nurse and be rocked more or put in bed with us.  many times in the last few weeks he refused to be put down at all.  we ended up caving in and taking him back downstairs to stay up with us until we went to bed at 11 o'clock or so when he'd fall asleep between us exhausted.  also during this time he started to wake up a lot more at night to nurse.  i tried not to think about it.  but then a couple of nights i jotted down just how often he was waking, and realized it was now 8-10 times a night.

i had a talk with billy's mom after christmas and really took what she said to heart.  she told me at ten months old, finn really needs to have two consistent nap times a day and be on a pretty predictable schedule.  i realized that i needed to make some changes.

i am not really a schedule person.  at all.  i kind of at one point prided myself in the fact that finn DIDN'T have a schedule.  we could do anything we wanted! we flew by the seat of our pants!  i slept in when i could get finn to sleep in in bed with me, i ran haphazard errands at odd times throughout the day (finn would normally cat nap in his car seat), we even went over to family's house for late dinners and either kept finn up late with us or put him to sleep on someone's floor.  it seemed like a great idea at the time.  but the resistance finn gave us over the holidays really made me realize that he was craving a routine and a schedule.  he didn't know what to expect out of his days, and i think it was making him confused and exhausted.


i made a resolution to start a schedule with finn, and we imparted on a sleep coaching journey with the help of two books- "the no cry sleep solution" and "good night sleep tight".  it has been less than a week, and i feel like finn has had a jenny craig commercial experience with sleep training... "these results are not typical!"  because it was way easier than i expected and he learned very quickly.

i will follow up with a more detailed look at what we are doing!  i had a mom going through this process reach out to me and it helped us a lot, so i hope we might be able to give someone else a couple ideas to get a good night's rest!  i honestly forgot what it felt like!  stay tuned! :)