A Week of Sleep Training....

So we have been doing sleep training. What is sleep training some of you may ask? Whelp, it is “training” your baby to sleep through the night. We are doing the “cry it out” technique. At our six month check up Dr. Yu said to let her cry for 20 minutes. I tried this several weeks ago one night and decided it wasn’t for us, but now I have noticed that Easton has been waking up at the same time every night, in the 2:00 – 4:00 AM hours. So I decided to give the cry it out theory one more whirl. But of course I decided to start this the week Josh has headed out of town for work. Really I am that dumb to lay in bed by myself listening to our daughter cry her eyes out for her Momma. Stupid… Stupid.. Stupid…, but I am ready to start getting at least 8 hours of sleep again.

Valentine’s Day night, Night 1, Momma had to do some tough love and so began night 1 of sleep training. Easton woke up at 3:26 am. Easton cried until 3:46 am. Momma got up at 3:46 am and rocked Easton back to sleep. Momma wasn’t back in bed until after 4:00 am. Needless to say Momma was REALLY late to work that day.

Night 2- High five to Momma! I won’t go as far as saying Amen, but I will do my silly Momma dance! Easton work up at 3:06 am and by 3:15am she had put herself back to sleep. In 9 minutes! 9 minutes! This is huge people! I was so very proud of her. She only cried 9 minutes before she conked back out. Of course I HAD to go check on her once she feel back to sleep, but I waited until I knew she was sleeping good before tip toeing into her room. There she was knees tucked underneath her, booty up in the air, laying on top of her covers and vertical in the horizontal crib sleeping like a little angel. I didn’t dare move her to get to her blanket to cover her up, instead I figured she would be warm enough with her sleeper on and her little heater going.

Night 3- No 3:00 am wake up call! Let me repeat that! NO 3:00 am wake up call! However she did wake up at 5:00 am, but hey I will take that any day. So guess what this Momma did? Scooped her up and brought into our bed for 30 minutes until my alarm when off. Bad habit I know, but in my defense my husband was still out of town and I reeeally wanted that extra 30 minutes.

Night 4- We are on a roll! Eaton woke up at 4:46 am and I sent Daddy into rock her to back to sleep while I got 30 more minutes of sleep. Needless to say her and Daddy slept in the nursery chair until 6:30 am when I made him put her back in her crib.

Night 5- Awww... the weekend! Awwww.... Easton doesn't care, but she did sleep until 5:30 am! I nursed her right away and she went right back asleep until 9:00.

Night 6- Hot diggity dog! I think we are getting somewhere! Little Ms. Thang slept until 8:00 am. Holy bajesus! I am afraid to say anymore than that as I may jinks it!

Night 7- Ugh.... One step forward... Two steps backwards. Easton had no desire to go to bed last night. She usually goes down between 9:00 and 9:45 pm. Not tonight. She was bright eyed and bushy tailed until after 10:00. I think Josh and I where in bed by 11:15. Then she woke up in the middle of the night. I let her cry and she put herself back to sleep.

So I survived a week of sleep training. I must admit the first night I had to lay there and just let my baby cry my heart was breaking. All I wanted to do to is snatch her up and snuggle her. But I keep telling myself there will be times that I can not "fix" all her problems and she will need to learn those on her own. Sleep training doesn't happen in a week and by no means is Easton "trained", but she is heading down the right path and things are getting better. This will always be a work in progress.

I will leave you with some pictures of Easton in her Johnny Jumper. She loves it!