Ahhhhh, sweet sleep!

We started sleep training Elise on the eve of her 10-month birthday. What a great idea it was!

Our plan was to let her fuss for 5 min, then we’d go in and lay her back down, and rub her back for 3-5 min. We kept doing this until she fell back asleep and any time she woke up.

And here are the results:

Night 1: 1 hr 45 min of on-and-off crying
Night 2: 50 min of on-and-off crying
Night 3: 5 min of crying
Night 4: Slept through the night
Night 5: 2 very short crying episodes that stopped immediately with back-patting
Night 6: Slept through the night
Night 7: Slept through the night
Night 8: Slept through the night
Night 9: Slept through the night
Night 10: Slept through the night
Nights 11 and on: Slept through the night

Here’s why I think we’ve been successful thus far:

*I waited until I knew she could sleep through the night, as she’d done it here and there, but not consistently.
*I waited until I felt she could cognitively understand what we were doing – that she wasn’t going to get picked up just because she fussed a little. She knows what “no” means, and I felt that was a good indicator of her readiness.
*I was 100% committed to it once we started. I knew it was going to be tough, but I also knew that once we started, we couldn’t give in and pick her up – we’d do more harm than good!
*I finally accepted that her crying was because she was mad that we wouldn’t pick her up. She was not hurt, scared, or sad – she was ticked off! I can deal with ticked off; I’m sure she’ll be mad at me lots during her life – it just means I’m doing my job right.

As a testimony to her sleeping better, when I picked her up from daycare one day last week, her sitter (who did not know we were sleep training) commented that she was a different child the past few days and wanted to know what we were doing differently! Well, she’s getting adequate amounts of sleep for the first time in quite a while, and it definitely has improved her demeanor. She’s just a happier kid!

My next step is putting her to bed drowsy but not fast asleep, but I’m going to wait a month or so before tackling that!