Hellobee

Let me be honest right off the bat—this started out as a comprehensive post about sleep training but it totally got derailed. So instead, I decided to share with you about our overall experience in sleep training, seeing as it took us several attempts. Sometimes sleep training is messy and doesn’t work the first time—something I learned first hand this go-around with Baby Deer. Maybe you weren’t as ready as you thought you were. Or perhaps your baby is the one who isn’t quite ready. But that tiredness creeps in (or hits your hard like a sledgehammer) and you are Oh. So. Tired. You reach the point of zombie-hood and don’t know where to go from there. That was me, many months ago. I knew we had to make a change. Thus, we decided it was time to sleep train.

Sweet Baby Deer dreaming away

Attempt #1

When Baby Deer was about 3.5 months old Mr. Deer and I reached our wits’ end. Sweet baby HAD to have her pacifier to sleep, but it would fall out of her mouth 10-15 times per night. We were getting so frustrated. I didn’t sleep train Little Deer until she was 6 months old and wanted to hold out that long with Baby Deer too, but I felt like we were stuck. I couldn’t take this many wake-ups any longer. We decided to do cry-it-out with checks (every 5-10 minutes based on how she was doing). Our goals were to 1) help Baby Deer learn to self-soothe and 2) ditch the swaddle. The first night was very difficult, but within an hour she was asleep without her pacifier and in just a sleep sack. I had to leave the house to go for a walk during the difficult moments because at that point I was still in a dark place with some postpartum depression/anxiety. Once she was asleep the rest of the night went pretty well and I nursed her at her typical wake-ups (this was before we switched to formula due to her FPIES).

I was hoping Night #2 would be a bit better on the front end, but it was so much worse. The crying just did not stop. She would not settle down. I knew then and there that we had to stop because she wasn’t ready. What we were doing wasn’t sleep training, it was just letting her cry. She wasn’t self-soothing or finding a new way to calm herself down at all. At about the hour-mark I went in and picked her up. She was shaking and doing little sobbing hiccups. It broke my heart. I felt so much sadness and guilt. Not only were we no closer to anybody getting better sleep, but I put her through two rough nights for nothing. It just plain sucked.

After that we resolved to just try and survive until we hit the 6-month mark. Before we reached that age there were definitely some ups and downs. Sleep regressions, teething, switching to formula, tackling reflux… the works. There were nights she was up hourly and nights where she would only wake up twice for a bottle. We were on a roller coaster, that was for sure.

Attempt #2

When Baby Deer turned 6 months old I decided I didn’t want to mess around anymore—I wanted a plan. I’d read all the sleep training books and knew there was so much information surrounding sleep training (and much of it conflicting at that). I convinced my husband to let us hire a sleep consultant to help us form a plan and take a little pressure off the situation. Within a few days we had talked with a sleep consultant, formulated a plan, and were ready to begin again. The difference this time around was that she was older and we weren’t going to take the pacifier away. With her reflux it seemed she really found sucking on her pacifier to be soothing, so it didn’t seem fair to take that from her. She was just learning how to get the pacifier back in her mouth at this time, so we were hoping that the sleep training would be a motivating push to help her master that skill. Again, we were allowing some crying but were doing 10-minute timed checks.

The first night it took about an hour with a few checks to get her to fall asleep. The next day we did the same thing for naps according to the sleep plan. She was exhausted by bedtime from having bad naps all day and was asleep with just a few checks by 5:30 PM. Finally, it looked like we were getting somewhere! And then, Little Deer brought home a cold from school and poor Baby Deer became a sick, snotty, and hot little mess. She couldn’t breathe out her nose which meant she couldn’t suck on her pacifier which in turn meant no sleep. For anyone. That first night (night #3 of sleep training) we were up literally all night long holding her because she just could not sleep. Needless to say, we had to abandon sleep training completely. It took a good week and a half for her to start feeling better, and after she had a couple good days we knew it was time to give sleep training a try again. But then cold #2 hit. Oh man that was rough. That one took about two weeks to clear. And finally, that led us to…

Attempt #3

By the time we survived the cold-pocalypse, Baby Deer had just turned 7 months old. Despite rough nights and short naps, Baby Deer had made a few leaps in the sleep department on her own. She kept pulling one arm out of her sleep sack, so we eventually started swaddling her with it out which she tolerated. She also mastered putting the pacifier back in by herself (yay!). I felt like we were finally just a few steps away from getting some better sleep. I didn’t feel the need to contact our sleep consultant again (there were a few issues with our overall experience) so we made a simple plan ourselves. Before I get into that though, here is Baby Deer’s current schedule at 7 months for a bit of reference:

Baby Deer’s 7-month Schedule 

• 6:30 – 7:00 AM: Wakeup
• 9:00 – 10:00 AM: Nap #1 (about 1 hour and 45 minutes after morning wakeup). Goal is a 1 hour nap.
• 12:00 – 1:30 PM: Nap #2 (about 2 hours after the first nap). Goal is an hour and a half nap.
• 3:45 – 4:30 PM: Nap #3 (about 2 hours and 15 minutes after the second nap). Just a quick catnap.
• 6:30 PM: Begin bedtime routine, asleep about 20 minutes later.
• 12:00 AM: Night feeding #1
• 4:00 AM: Night feeding #2

And now, here were our few simple goals for implementing sleep training:

1. Do her normal nap/bedtime routine after her optimal wake time (diaper, sleep sack, story, song and snuggles).
2. Place her in her crib awake with her pacifier (at least 3 other pacifiers available in her crib).
3. Do checks every 5 minutes if prolonged/escalated crying. Otherwise let her find her pacifier and get settled herself.
4. For Nap #1 have her stay in her crib a minimum of an hour and for Nap #2 have her stay in her crib an hour and a half.

We decided on 5 minutes checks because that worked best for us. She often didn’t cry that long anyway, so if she was really struggling I didn’t see the need to let her cry 10 minutes when I could help her settle after just 5 minutes no problem. We originally were going to just sleep train at night, but after that first night she busted out of the swaddle during naps no matter what, so we put her in asleep sack for naps too and followed the same rules.

And the verdict? She’s been doing great! The first night it took her about 30 minutes of fussing off and on to fall asleep (and when she did it was slumped over sitting up, poor girl!). And then you know what? She slept ALL NIGHT LONG with no wake-ups! Totally a fluke, but still exciting. The next two nights it only took about 15 minutes for her to fall asleep with minimal fussing and she had her two normal nighttime bottles around 12:00 AM and 4:00 AM. The first few days of naps were a bit rougher in that she only took 30 minute naps, but by day 3 if given a little time she would often get herself back to sleep. Those days that she took short naps though we just put her to bed a bit earlier.

So in the end we accomplished our goals in that 1) she can now self-soothe with her pacifier and 2) she’s no longer swaddled. Phew! What a long journey it was, but I’m glad that it happened the way it did. I think it was so easy this third time around because it was more on her terms, she was finally a bit older and ready to replace her own pacifier and find a comfortable position sans-swaddle.

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How was your experience with sleep training? Did it take you a few tries?