The Secret to Sleeping Through The Night (STTN)
After 7 days and 6 nights of no soother, CIO, and minimal rocking/picking up...the answer was so obvious. I don't know why I had missed this for a whole week. We did this one thing last night and it made all the difference. She slept for 10 hours, with 2 dream feeds before Bryan and I went to bed, which meant 7.5 hours of sleep with no feeds in between.
Day 4-6 were as horrific as any other. Nap times were ok-ish. Took anywhere between 10-20 minutes for her to go down. We cut the night time to about 30-45 minutes of CIO. And she wouldn't go down on her own either. She only ever went down after one of us rocked her for about 2-5 minutes!
So I thought with this much CIO, she must STTN! Nope! This girl was keeping us on our toes! She was waking at least 2-3 times a night, with at least one time in there of 30 minutes of wailing. Sometimes, she would just wake at 3 am cooing and playing. Bryan and I were running on no sleep with her being in the same room with us. We just resorted to picking her up and rocking because we couldn't stand CIO while we were so exhausted! I was starting to wonder if the soother was the cause of her waking up at all. I was starting to wonder if we were doing the right thing. She was obviously still waking up in the middle of the night! Maybe we should just stick the soother back in!
Day 7 I decided to introduce the sleep sack during naps. It worked awesome at first. She would cry for about 3-5 mins and then would fall asleep on her own. We were making progress, and I was very hopeful! The only thing was that she would wake after 45 minutes (her sleep cycle) and wouldn't go back down to sleep. She would just cry until her next feeding. I wasn't sure how we were going to manage this one! At one point, we actually DID pop the soother back in and she only took it for like 20 seconds! (So off the soother again we went)
So, last night, I told Bryan that this was it. I couldn't let her CIO if she was in the same room with us. It's time we moved her to her own room (she was always in her own crib). If she was in her own room, I thought maybe it would be easier to let her CIO at 3 am in the morning by turning the monitor down.
So, after a bit of moving stuff around, we were ready for the big transition.
I did our bedtime routine (diaper change, PJ's, read a book, song) and then put her in her sleep sack. Well, that was the beginning of her wailing AGAIN. I couldn't take it anymore, so Bryan took over from there. 20 minutes later (although it seemed like an eternity since we've been doing this for a week!), Bryan sang her a song and she was out. Now we were holding our breaths to see how she'd do the rest of the night.
I dreamt fed her at 9, then 10:30 (normally it's 8:30 and 10, but I got distracted and forgot the 8:30 feed). So far so good.
Bryan and I didn't get to bed until 11:30 because we were a little worried. I mean, it's very different to have your baby in the same room. You just get up, pick her up, and soothe her. But having a different room meant I had to get up, turn on lights, walk across the hall to do all those things. When we finally went to bed, I couldn't sleep! I was so anxious!
I woke up in the dark and heard a little bit of cooing. I thought to myself, ok, I'm going to wait the 15 minutes to see what happens. Then I heard Bryan's alarm. I looked at my clock and imagine my surprise when I realized that Mack had STTN!
I literally jumped out of bed and did a happy dance. Even though I was living on little sleep (since we went to bed late AND I was too anxious to fall asleep), I've never been more awake.
Then I realized that the past week taking away her soother and guiding her to sleep on her own, we were trying to teach her independence. Yet this whole time we had her in our room! If we were going to teach independence, we can't just be half way! We had to be all the way.
So, like I said, 7 days, 6 nights of CIO later - we are now sans soother, no more swaddle, and half way to her falling asleep on her own. Now we just have to work on no rocking to sleep at night!
Our first night of STTN was well worth a whole week's worth of crying. And you know what? Mack woke up HAPPY. She woke up and didn't cry AT ALL. That meant that she had a good sleep. And when she played this morning, she wasn't cranky like she was in the past week. She happily played on her own through her various stations (that was my mommy group friend Laura's idea - to have different play stations). CIO isn't for everyone, but it looked like it was for us.
Of course, this was only one night. I will keep you updated on the rest!
Day 4-6 were as horrific as any other. Nap times were ok-ish. Took anywhere between 10-20 minutes for her to go down. We cut the night time to about 30-45 minutes of CIO. And she wouldn't go down on her own either. She only ever went down after one of us rocked her for about 2-5 minutes!
So I thought with this much CIO, she must STTN! Nope! This girl was keeping us on our toes! She was waking at least 2-3 times a night, with at least one time in there of 30 minutes of wailing. Sometimes, she would just wake at 3 am cooing and playing. Bryan and I were running on no sleep with her being in the same room with us. We just resorted to picking her up and rocking because we couldn't stand CIO while we were so exhausted! I was starting to wonder if the soother was the cause of her waking up at all. I was starting to wonder if we were doing the right thing. She was obviously still waking up in the middle of the night! Maybe we should just stick the soother back in!
Day 7 I decided to introduce the sleep sack during naps. It worked awesome at first. She would cry for about 3-5 mins and then would fall asleep on her own. We were making progress, and I was very hopeful! The only thing was that she would wake after 45 minutes (her sleep cycle) and wouldn't go back down to sleep. She would just cry until her next feeding. I wasn't sure how we were going to manage this one! At one point, we actually DID pop the soother back in and she only took it for like 20 seconds! (So off the soother again we went)
So, last night, I told Bryan that this was it. I couldn't let her CIO if she was in the same room with us. It's time we moved her to her own room (she was always in her own crib). If she was in her own room, I thought maybe it would be easier to let her CIO at 3 am in the morning by turning the monitor down.
So, after a bit of moving stuff around, we were ready for the big transition.
I did our bedtime routine (diaper change, PJ's, read a book, song) and then put her in her sleep sack. Well, that was the beginning of her wailing AGAIN. I couldn't take it anymore, so Bryan took over from there. 20 minutes later (although it seemed like an eternity since we've been doing this for a week!), Bryan sang her a song and she was out. Now we were holding our breaths to see how she'd do the rest of the night.
I dreamt fed her at 9, then 10:30 (normally it's 8:30 and 10, but I got distracted and forgot the 8:30 feed). So far so good.
Bryan and I didn't get to bed until 11:30 because we were a little worried. I mean, it's very different to have your baby in the same room. You just get up, pick her up, and soothe her. But having a different room meant I had to get up, turn on lights, walk across the hall to do all those things. When we finally went to bed, I couldn't sleep! I was so anxious!
I woke up in the dark and heard a little bit of cooing. I thought to myself, ok, I'm going to wait the 15 minutes to see what happens. Then I heard Bryan's alarm. I looked at my clock and imagine my surprise when I realized that Mack had STTN!
I literally jumped out of bed and did a happy dance. Even though I was living on little sleep (since we went to bed late AND I was too anxious to fall asleep), I've never been more awake.
Then I realized that the past week taking away her soother and guiding her to sleep on her own, we were trying to teach her independence. Yet this whole time we had her in our room! If we were going to teach independence, we can't just be half way! We had to be all the way.
So, like I said, 7 days, 6 nights of CIO later - we are now sans soother, no more swaddle, and half way to her falling asleep on her own. Now we just have to work on no rocking to sleep at night!
Our first night of STTN was well worth a whole week's worth of crying. And you know what? Mack woke up HAPPY. She woke up and didn't cry AT ALL. That meant that she had a good sleep. And when she played this morning, she wasn't cranky like she was in the past week. She happily played on her own through her various stations (that was my mommy group friend Laura's idea - to have different play stations). CIO isn't for everyone, but it looked like it was for us.
Of course, this was only one night. I will keep you updated on the rest!
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