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Baby Oats getting ready for one of his last naps out of the crib…and the last with a swaddle and a paci!

I wrote a few weeks ago about transitioning Baby Oats from the swing/our bed to his own space in the Pack n Play in our room. Unfortunately, shortly after that post published, we hit the 4 month sleep regression and any progress we had made vanished.

This past week, I had a few friends over for coffee, and we got to chatting about sleep issues. One friend has a son who is two weeks older than Baby Oats, and she mentioned that her son has been sleeping in his own crib at night and for naps, and wasn’t even waking to eat overnight. I begged her for her secret to magical baby sleep. Turns out she had hired a sleep consultant with some wonderful techniques and ideas, and she was willing to share. Within a couple of hours, I’d received a whole sleep training program, and Mr. O and I psyched ourselves up to begin.

We used the Ferber method with Little Oats; after a few nights of ten-minute checks, she was able to put herself to sleep. However, regardless of what we tried, she still woke up at least once per night until she was 16 months old. Baby Oats has a much different temperament than Little Oats, and I was pretty sure that Ferber wouldn’t work quite as well. Thankfully, the sleep program we wanted to try was sort of an ‘easy’ cry-it-out method.

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This 10-day method tackled daytime sleep and night time sleep at the same time. Since it focuses on getting rid of all sleep crutches, we also decided to get rid of the swaddle and pacifier as well. Crazy? Maybe – but honestly, a few days of exhaustion would be worth it if Baby Oats could learn to sleep in his own bed all the time. And night weaning in the process? Even better. I’ll write about the nap training process in my next post, but for now I’ll focus on night time sleep.

Here’s how it goes:

After a bedtime routine of your choosing, put baby in their crib, turn off the lights, and say a ‘key phrase.’ Then, sit in a chair beside the crib for as long as it takes for baby to fall asleep; if they’re crying, shushing and repeating your ‘key phrase’ every few minutes is encouraged. For night time wakeups, let baby cry for 10 minutes, then go in and sit in the chair until baby falls back asleep (if they haven’t already). This method also relies on NOT feeding baby overnight, so if your little one doesn’t weigh enough and isn’t old enough, this program probably isn’t for you. (Baby Oats is almost 20lbs at 5 months!!) The first three nights, you sit beside the crib. The next three nights, you sit across the room. The final four nights, you sit just outside the door. If you’re lucky, you won’t need all ten nights, and baby will be falling asleep by themselves.

Reading this plan, I was pretty nervous. Baby Oats had never really fallen asleep on his own before, and I could only imagine sitting in a rocking chair beside his crib for hours upon hours. Also, he likes to comfort nurse at night, so I doubted he would make it through an entire night without wanting to nurse! I was sure he would wake himself up with his hands free, too – all in all, I was convinced this would be a complete and utter disaster. But Mr. O wanted to give it a try, so last Thursday night, we began.

Night One:

After nursing Baby Oats, I changed him into his pyjamas, and we read some stories. Then I put on his sleep sack, turned on his white noise, turned off the lights, and laid him down in the crib. Mr. O was taking the first night of sitting, because we figured if Baby Oats couldn’t smell my milk, he would settle in better. For the first ten minutes, Baby Oats just laid there, staring at the ceiling and wiggling his legs around. Then the crying started (and I shut the monitor off because I didn’t want to hear it). He cried on and off for about 45 minutes. Mr. O shushed him, sang to him, and picked him up occasionally, and eventually he fell asleep on his own.

That night, he woke up twice; once at 1:30am and once at 3:30am. At 1:30, he cried for about 5 minutes, and fell back asleep. At 3:30, he cried on and off for about 30 minutes – since he never cried for longer than about 2 minutes at a time, we didn’t go in to sit with him. He fell back to sleep on his own, and slept until 7:00am. Upon waking, I was completely shocked at how well the first night had gone; milk-free, swaddle-free, paci-free, Mama-free. I’ve often heard that the first night of sleep training goes really well, then baby gets smart and the next few nights are much harder. We’ll see.

Night Two:

We completed the same bedtime routine, and put Baby Oats in his crib. This time I sat beside his crib. He cried on and off for about 20 minutes, calming when I shushed him or patted his stomach. When he finally fell asleep, he slept until about 4:00am. He had a tougher time settling then; I think Mr. O sat in his room for an hour before he fell back to sleep. This was probably the hardest part; I knew that if I just went in and nursed him, he would doze off and we could all get some sleep. But I just kept reminding myself that one or two tough nights would be worth it if he kept sleeping well. After he fell to sleep, he stayed asleep until Little Oats woke him up at 7:30am.

Night Three:

After our bedtime routine, Baby Oats snuggled into his crib and fell asleep. He didn’t wake up again until 7:00am the next morning. My mind was officially blown…Little Oats didn’t sleep through the night until she was 16 months old.

Night Four:

Even though this is a 10-day program, I’m stopping here. Baby Oats fell asleep on his own with zero crying, and slept straight through until morning. (After I wrote this post, Baby Oats continued sleeping through the night with no crying for nights five, six, seven and eight).

I’m sitting here now with both of my kids in bed at 8:00pm, knowing that if all goes well, I’ll get a full night’s sleep. I can’t believe it, and truthfully I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Is this what it’s like to have a baby that sleeps? I’m contemplating sending my friend a huge bouquet of flowers, because this round of sleep training truly changed my life.