It’s 8.30pm and I’ve spent the last hour sitting on our sofa with a cup of tea and my favourite magazine, the Women’s Health. For the first time in a while I feel relaxed. I’m not frantically watching the baby monitor, tiptoeing around or arguing with my husband about who was breathing the loudest when our baby woke up, again. It’s night 5 of sleep training and Maia has not made a peep after falling asleep two minutes (!!) after I left her nursery at 7pm. After finishing up my chores of cleaning the kitchen and hanging up wet laundry, I sat down to have a moment to myself. My husband is working late today and is eating out so I prepared a quick rye toast with avocado and cherry tomatoes to go with my cuppa – I’ve never been big on cooking for myself.
Sitting here in peace and blissful solitude, I realise how stressed and anxious Maia’s poor sleeping in the last two months had made me. Not only had we become severely sleep deprived, having Maia wake up so frequently throughout the evening and the night had robbed us our precious adult evenings – our time to wind down as well as to spend some time together as a couple. Or the chance to have some me-time, as I am tonight.
It could be a coincidence, but after four nights of sleep training and significantly improved sleep, I’m starting to believe it is indeed working. The change has been so drastic I’m almost annoyed. Is she having a laugh?! After nearly two months of progressively disastrous sleep it seems ridiculous that the solution all along would have been to just leave Maia by herself to fall asleep on her own. But ladies and gentlemen, that’s exactly what’s happened.
The terms “cry it out” or “controlled crying” and whatnot in the sleep training terminology sound terrible. Who wants their baby to be upset and cry alone? No one! And yes, teaching the baby to fall asleep independently involves varying amounts of crying. But had I known that the amount of crying Maia was going to do in relation to our sleep training is totally comparable to her daily protests to washing her face after meals, I probably wouldn’t have waited until she is ten months old (and I resemble a walking dead) before trying this method from the book “Precious Little Sleep”.
So what have we done exactly and what have been the results so far?
On each day Maia has had a nap in the morning (around 9am) and a nap in the afternoon (around 1.30pm) for about two hours in total. I start her dinner by 5.30pm after which she can play until 6pm. At 6pm I take her to her dimly lit nursery, I turn on her dream sheep Ewan’s lullaby music (just because she’s had it for months and is used to it, it plays for 20-minutes only) and we sit down in the nursing chair. I’m starting our bedtime routine with the boob instead of finishing with it to break the boob-sleep association I’ve (involuntarily) established. Maia isn’t necessarily hungry since she just had her dinner, but this time is for Maia to calm down for the night. In case her dinner was not very successful, this feed also works as a top up. Before she starts to fall asleep I take her to bath, however trying to avoid getting her all excited again (she loves playing in water). After bath I dress her in pyjamas, turn the white noise on and lights off, give her a quick cuddle and a kiss and leave the room at around 7pm.
And that’s when she starts to cry in protest as she’s used to being rocked/cuddled/nursed to sleep and then being moved to her cot.
Summary of what happened next:
Night 1: Bedtime to sleep 1h, nightly wake ups 1
My husband and I feel miserably listening to poor Maia cry. We have a timer for the intervals (5-10-15-… minutes) and we take turns to go check on her. Maia stands up against the cot rails and cries heart breakingly but we stay firm. We don’t pick her up, but try to briefly soothe her with reassuring words and a few strokes and help her to lie back down. We go in four times and on the last visit my husband lays her down carefully as she has fallen asleep sitting up and leaning against the cot side (bless her). This process took an hour and she is asleep by 8pm. Maia doesn’t wake up until 2am. I nurse her for about half an hour after which I put her down again. She cries and I go in twice to check on her. She falls back asleep in half an hour (3am). Maia wakes up in her own cot at 6.45am. We are dumbfounded.
Night 2: Bedtime to sleep 20-minutes, nightly wake ups 1
Maia falls asleep independently in twenty minutes (two visits), to our amazement. She sleeps again through the evening and doesn’t wake up until 1.30am. I nurse her for 15-minutes during which she falls back asleep and I put her to her cot sleeping. She wakes up again at 5.30am and wants to start the day. To stretch the night I take her into my bed for boob and snooze (not sure if this is “allowed” by the book)
Night 3: Bedtime to sleep 5-minutes, nightly wake ups 1
Maia cries as I leave her room but falls asleep in 5-minutes, before I even go back to check on her. Success! She wakes up at 2.40am and I breastfeed for twenty minutes. I put Maia back down at 3am and unfortunately it takes an hour before she falls back asleep. Maia doesn’t cry much at all, but she’s sitting up and fighting sleep. We repeat the 5-minute plan and go in four times before she settles. She wakes up at 5.30am again and spends the last hour of the night next to me cuddling.
Night 4: Bedtime to sleep 2 minutes, nightly wake ups 1
Again, she starts crying as I leave her, but is asleep by the time I close her door! She wakes up already at midnight and I feed her. She falls asleep on the boob but wakes up when I put her back to bed. I leave the room and go in twice. She’s asleep in half an hour. Maia wakes up at 5am and wants a feed again, so I feed her for half an hour. She refuses to go back to sleep although I try the 5-minute plan again. Because we are so close to morning I take her next to me again and we sleep until 7am.
Night 5: Bedtime to sleep 2 minutes
Asleep before I close the door… Amazing. [Edit: She slept until 5am without waking up. That’s 10 hours!]
All I can say now is that I hope this continues. Even if it doesn’t I’m grateful for this week, we needed the rest.
xoxoxo,
Sini