i have a preview for you about how jake’s first 4 nights went with his sleep training. as you will see once your read, the beauty of this is, by night 2 there were no longer any night feeds and by night 4 trish didn’t have to go in to help soothe at all! it is truly amazing how fast you can sleep train your little ones if you fully commit to the process!
night 1:
was a tough night! trish put him down sort of asleep (which she shouldn’t do when training. you need to put them down drowsy, but awake. as the goal is for them to self-soothe and fall asleep unassassited .) jake woke 40 minutes later with lots of tears, 45 minutes in total. trish went in every 15 minutes, to shush, and gave the pacifier at the beginning to soothe, but once it fell out in his crib that was it. she wasn’t going back in to give it back, which is perfect. you cannot be going in and retrieving the pacy if you are sleep training. you will be defeating the entire purpose, which is to not go in during the night. jake finally fell asleep with the shushing, but slept only 40 minutes. this time he cried 23 minutes in total and they only went in 1 time to help soothe him. this time he slept 2 hours and woke again. the good news is, he only cried 11 minutes this go round, so they didn’t go in at all! trish was nervous to not feed him, as i mentioned in the first blog “sleepless nights : jake (6 months)” so she decided to try a ‘dream feed’ at midnight. this didn’t work for her, as once the feed was over she laid him down and he immediately woke. i never advise clients to do a dream feed, as you don’t want to train them to need that feed in the night. the goal is for them to sleep all night, so don’t prohibit this from happening! this waking jake cried 11 minutes after the feed and then slept for his longest stretch, 3 hours and 43 minutes! (slowly but surely he is getting the hang of it!) he then woke at 4 am and cried 15 minutes, went to sleep on his own and slept for almost 2 more hours until 7 am.
trish was tired and the night felt long, but i encouraged trish to remain positive as the amount of progress jake actually made in his 1st night was incredible. not only did jake only eat one time, which she encouraged, but he also got himself to sleep a couple of times with only a few tears!!!
night 2:
with my advice to trish about the negatives of a dream feed, she decided not to feed during the 2nd night. trish, once again laid jake down for bed with his eyes closed (aka asleep and needs to go down awake) and he only slept for 37 minutes. this is the reason you truly need to lay them down awake, but drowsy. you want them to learn to fall asleep unassisted. that way if they wake in the night, which babies often do on a regular basis, they will know how to go back to sleep on their own. you don’t want them looking for you and needing you to rock, nurse, etc. to get back to sleep. trish’s night went on with stretches averaging around 2 hours of sleep and then waking. the good news is he cried short bouts in between the sleeps, so they only had to go 2 times throughout the night. the successes for night 2 are very apparent! for one, she didn’t feed him during the night and now we all know he can go the night without food!! secondly, in only 2 nights of sleep training, he as fallen asleep during the night on his own! check and check!!! we are well on our way!
night 3:
jake went to sleep on his own with less than 10 minutes of tears and slept almost a 4 hour stretch! he woke and cried 13 minutes and went back to sleep for 5 hours and 15 minutes!! then next time he woke he only fussed on and off for 33 minutes and slept another 2 hours until 7:20 am! amazing!! they never went in, he didn’t feed, he slept longer stretches and fell asleep unassisted all night long! babies are such smart little things! it’s truly mind boggling how fast they learn if you give them the opportunity!
night 4:
they didn’t go in at all because he never cried more than 15 minutes and woke only 3 times throughout the night and never really cried. more just fussing to get himself back to sleep!
as you can see from these short few nights, the progress is outstanding! trish went from going in every 2 hours to feed and rock back to sleep, to not going in at all to soothe or feed! over the course of the next couple weeks jake has learned to sleep all night with only occassional wakings, of which he is getting himself back to sleep with no tears!
congrats to jake and his family who are all catching their zzz’s tonight!
Wow! That's amazing! As I'm reading this, I feel like there's hope in our sleepless nights. Like Jake, our LO wakes up every 2-3 hrs and the longest stretch I've ever had is 4hrs. She's 5 months now. I just have a hard time telling if she's actually hungry or just fussing and like you have suggested I feed her very frequently during the day every 2hrs. I know she can soothe herself to sleep as we have been working on that already eg. always put her down drowsy but awake, she has a lovey and falls asleep within 5-10mins. But sometimes when she wakes up, especially before midnight, she just can't soothe herself and ends up crying and crying until I feed her. Anyways, Trish and Jake's story sounds so much like ours, we will continue to persevere and work on it! Thanks for this post!
thank you sadie for commenting! i love connecting with my readers and interacting directly on my site! i'm happy to have given you some hope. this hope can become a reality for you. your LO is capable of all night sleep and it sounds like you are doing a lot of things right, ie: laying her down drowsy and trying to teach her to self soothe. please contact me in the future if you need some one to one assistance with your situation. good luck and thanks for reading!
wow! this post gave me SUCH comfort. my LO is only 3 months but i was wondering how to sleep train and this answered so many of my questions for when i do begin sleep the process (ie – what to do about re-inserting pacy, how to put down to sleep, etc). thank you times 1000!
leigh, thank you for reading and commenting! i am happy i have answered some of your questions! you are welcome 1000 times over! you say your LO is only 3 months, but you are at a point where you can begin implementing proper sleep habits. you don't have to wait until 6 months and then at it hard core!