Sleep Training

Thursday, 6 March 2008

This past week, we've been trying to keep a stricter feeding and sleeping routine with Chase so that he sleeps better at night. In an effort to sleep train him (which I swore I would do it on a weekend, but never works out the way you planned it), I've let him cry it out a few times (extending my 15 minute limit to 20 minutes at a time) and have tried not to nurse him when he wakes up in the middle of the night. We went to Sunday dinner at Big City Diner earlier than we usually do so that we could get home on time to bathe and put Chase to bed by 7:30 pm, and we skipped dinner at the Halsalls' house on Wednesday night just so that we could keep our routine. I've started keeping a feeding and sleeping log so that I can start to see his patterns. Chris will ask me each morning how the night was, and it's always such a blur....One sleepless night just meshes with the next, and I cannot remember if I was up 3 or 4 times or 2 or 3 times...I can always remember if I just got up once though! Those are those rare, wonderful occasions I like to celebrate!

But, I'm trying to change that from being a rare occurrence. After talking to moms and friends who are moms, I know that it's crazy that I'm still waking up in the middle of the night to nurse Chase to sleep (as he shouldn't need middle-of-the-night feedings anymore for nutrition). I need to stop the habit so that both he and I can start to get uninterrupted, continuous hours or sleep. Like I said, I'm trying...I've left my nursing bra in the crib, a burp cloth, a toy.....things to help him self-soothe....I've tried not to use the swing, but still sometimes I revert back to using the swing and nursing him if his crying gets louder and goes past 20 minutes. I just can't let him cry for hours on end.

Chris is at a bachelor party tonight for a good friend of his in from Seattle. Jason's getting married on Saturday. Chase played all afternoon (He loves his new $2 bouncy ball from Long's and scooted himself all over the place, while sitting up on his butt, playing with me and his toys) and didn't take a nap, so he was out by 7:20 pm...Of course he's stirred a couple of times, and I nursed him once, but he's asleep in his crib. I was able to eat dinner and watch the new episode of "Lost". It was nice. I put a few things away in our new 4 drawer file cabinet that I bought off of Craigslist. I love organization! And now I have to start inputting all my cell phone numbers into my new cell phone. Soon, I will no longer be a Sprint customer (since the reception sucks at my house) and I will be joining T-mobile on Chris' family plan.

Time to go to bed now. Wish me luck tonight. Hopefully I'll only have to get up once or twice tonight...once would be nice.