I, for one, sure do. Nate does, too. And most importantly, Miss K does.
Before K came along, it was very important to me that our future child have healthy sleep habits. I read the books, researched techniques and made plans for what our routine would be like.
The first few weeks were hit or miss, but that’s expected with a newborn. K would sleep most of the time – especially during the day. She slept most of the night, too. She went through a stage where she had a two hour stretch of wake time, which was usually at 1:00 AM. We were so in awe of our tiny little blessing that we didn’t mind staying up with her, at all.
After a few weeks, K started to sort out her days and nights. She really was a great little sleeper. She took several decent naps during the day and right around six or eight weeks she slept through the night (with the help of a SwaddleMe wrap and a sound machine). We were following “On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep,” and everything was going exactly like the book said it would. I thought that my hard work and preparation had paid off…
Right around the four month mark however, K started waking up during the night again. At first we thought it was because her four month vaccinations were making her feel cruddy. So we got up and rocked her, hoping it would only last a few days. A few days turned in to a week or two, and we thought that K must be teething. So we got up and rocked her. Hyland’s Teething Tablets seemed to help, but after a few more weeks, and no signs of teeth, we figured that she was having a growth spurt and must be hungry. So we got up and fed her. And now I’m certain that we’ve just been forming bad habits.
It’s been almost three months since K stopped sleeping through the night, and it’s taking a toll on the whole house. The cats aren’t even themselves! We’re all a little sleep deprived and we’re all confused on what to do about it.
I’ve started obsessing researching again – books, blogs, websites… etc. There are so many conflicting ideas out there. Do we put K to bed and let her cry it out until she falls asleep, or do we let her cry with periodic checks? What about the pick-up, put-down method? Do we sleep train at all, or just keep getting up with her every single night, until she’s a teenager and we’re arguing with her that it’s time to get out of bed? We could hire a sleep consultant… if we were rich! The options seem endless.
I’m currently reading “The Sleep Easy Solution: The Exhausted Parent’s Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep from Birth to Age 5,” and I’m hoping that this will be the technique that works for us. If I’m able to finish researching and get a good grasp on a method, we’re going to start some sort of sleep training this weekend. Hopefully this will be a two part post, with a more informative part two about how we started getting sleep again. We’ll see.
In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you!
Did/do you sleep train your children?
What methods have worked for you?
How long did it take to see results?
I’m sure there are others out there who are in the same boat, and maybe your input will provide some new options.
Comment away!