sleep training

For those of you fortunate enough to never have to sleep train your child, count yourself blessed.

It's not the world's most enjoyable activity. But the benefits make it worth it.

Natalie was a breeze to sleep train. She was already used to sleeping in her crib, all night, but she had just started to wake several times at night for her pacifier. Literally one night of sleep training, during which she just woke a few times and put herself back to sleep within minutes, and we were done. Easy peasy.

Easton, however, had been sleeping in the swing for a couple of months. The last month he was waking up for his pacifier, even while in the swing. I was not anticipating an easy go of it. I figured it would take several nights of really poor sleep before he would finally sleep all night in his crib, without his pacifier.

Dr. Ferber ("Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems") is a genius. That's all I have to say.

Easton's first night of sleep training was rough, as I had imagined it would be. He woke up four times during the night. I finished Miss Congeniality and started Ocean's Eleven. The longest he was awake was from 2-3am, after which he slept until morning, only waking himself up once but going back to sleep within minutes with only some minor fussing. Darren very kindly got up with him and Natalie around 7am and let me sleep in. The next night it was Darren's turn with Easton. I kept telling him, "I hope your night goes better than mine!"

And it was. I was really excited the next morning when Darren told me Easton didn't wake him up at all. I didn't necessarily take that to mean that Easton never woke up, though. Darren is a heavy sleeper, so I figured if Easton did wake up, he didn't cry long enough or hard enough to wake up Darren.

And it continued. Last night neither one of us heard Easton at all during the night after his last bottle around 9:30. We did hear him a couple times before that, although he put himself back to sleep before the first "check." He slept from 9:30-7:00am without waking either one of us up.

Sleep training success.