Sleep Training: 101

Now that Xavier is older, bigger and filled to the max with baby chub and drool, he is sleeping through the night (YEA!).  He's always been an okay sleeper, but now after we put him down at 7PM, he usually doesn't cry for us until 7 the next morning or sometimes even 8.  *counting my blessings*

Preemies always sleep a lot when they first come home from the hospital and we found that to be true the first 2 months.  The question was whether to put him in our room or his own.  I'd heard different opinions on both.  The first night home, we put Xavier in our bedroom, but those loud baby grunts and groans kept me from sleeping.  Starting with night #2, off to his own room we go!  In case he woke up and was bored, we placed pictures of us on the ceiling, placed these art cards and some toys along the crib railing.  We had a 3 hour rotation.  We occasionally heard him wake up, play with the toys, and fall back asleep.  He slept 2 hours of every 3 hour rotation.  

Around 2 months, he kept the 3 hour rotation, but during the night he'd usually sleep up to 5 hours (finally!!).  We had occasional stretches where he'd wake us up several times during the night, but I'd just rub his tummy and hold those green hospital paci's in his mouth until he fell asleep.  Most of the time, this worked, but many times it didn't.  It was around this time that I went back to work.  Sleepless nights like this made me thankful for daycare - I could go home early from work, nap, then go pick him up.  It amazed me how the motherhood gene lets you get 3 or 4 hours of sporadic sleep in a night and still be able to function.  Somehow your body adjusts to no sleep.

When he turned 4 months old, he started waking up all the time, every night.  He seemed to completely forget how to sleep in long stretches.  So we tried doing a bath every night before bed, that didn't work as he seemed to start hating baths.  We tried letting him cry it out, but that only lasted for 5 minutes.  I couldn't stand to hear him crying like that for me.  I'd go in his room, rub his tummy, make "ssshhh"-ing sounds, all of which seemed to calm him down.  The pacifier always fell out of his mouth, so I had to stand there and hold it, until my dad bought him the NUK.  Once we let him cry long enough to get tired, we gave him the NUK and he was out in no time.  It took a few tries some nights, but that NUK is the best invention ever!  One thing I never did was pick him up during the night, unless of course I thought he needed a bottle.  I think he got used to knowing I would only rub his tummy so he shouldn't expect otherwise.  

My sleep training with Xavier revolved mostly around him and what he seemed to like.  I did make him always sleep in his own room/and crib, never picked him up, and that's about as harsh as I was with the training.  I didn't force him to cry it out long periods of time and never put him to bed at 7 (or whatever time we chose for the age he was) if he wasn't tired.  Once he started sleeping 5 hours a night, we tried to put him to bed around 10.  As he slept in longer stretches, we moved bedtime up until eventually we got to the 7pm-7am routine.  Sometimes we'd put him to bed at 5:30 if he seemed sleepy enough.  We just went with the flow and it seemed to work out.  I'm sure baby #2 will be a sh*t show.

Every family has their own opinions on sleep training and some babies are more difficult to train than others.  Xavier was easy to train, but some babies may require a more strict schedule/harsher training.  We still run in to our stretches of sleepless nights (usually when he's sick), but it was never as bad as it was when he was younger.  So far, I've learned that it gets better.  Hoping the trend continues.  Happy training!