Sleep Training - Day 1

Benjamin's sleep habits are out of control. To no fault of his own, he has become quite demanding on the sleep-front - wanting to be rocked into a deep sleep, waking up soon after being put down to be rocked again (or simply held while he sleeps during times of Mark or my impatience). His newest trick is to take a 45-minute nap at bedtime (7:00ish), and then wake up and either stay up whining because he's tired, or sleep only while being held. The last few nights I've enjoyed movies and lots of TV catch up as I held him between 8:00 (waking from his bedtime "nap" until 11 PM (my bed time). He then comes into bed with me (Mark has since moved (temporarily!) to the guest room to make everyone more comfortable), and wakes up frequently to nurse or to snuggle if I've moved too far away.

It's sometimes endearing to see how close to us he wants to be. The rest of the time it's frustrating and exhausting.

So today is the first day that we've committed to actually doing something about it (well, about a week ago we were going to try for a rigid schedule, but gave up on that after a day and half). After reading the options (both extremes and in the middle), we're settling for the "3-day solution" from the Baby Whisperer book, focusing on the chapter that speaks specifically of our "accidental parenting" approach. I think it's the kindest to the baby (ie not crying it out - you work fairly intensely with the babe), but reaches our ultimate goal of more than 2 hours per day of non-Ben focused time (seriously, that's about all we get right now - and 2 hours per day means 24-hour period!). One thing to note: Baby whisperer says it's 3-days for a baby under 4 months old - we should expect 3-days per step, and we have a few steps to go, so it may take a little while. I'm hoping we'll have a solid sleeper in about a month.

So today, we spent about 3 hours of intense hands-on "sleep training" to get those 2 hours of free time. I think it went well, even if we did have a few screaming fits (Ben screaming, that is, not us), until we figured out how to soothe him with the least amount of help possible (ie finding that middle ground between rocking him to sleep and letting him cry himself there). He's been down for about 45 minutes now, so I'm expecting him to wake up shortly from his bedtime nap.

I'll try to post again to let you know how day 2 goes tomorrow...