In the Case of Miss Lilah: Our Sleep Training Journal - Day #1

Preface and Background
The problem: Lilah used to be a good sleeper. I remember thinking how much of an easy newborn baby she was and how she'd be the one to sleep through the night at 2 or 3 months. She even did, a time or two. Then she became an aware and social little baby. She also is smart and started relating her crying in the middle of the night to me picking her up and nursing her. The line between the "newborn-need-to-eat-in-the-middle-of-the-night" stage and the "baby-wanting-to-be-held-close-in-the-middle-of-the-night" stage became more and more blurred, specifically around months 4 and 5. Thus, in the last month or so, I've been wrestling (REALLY wrestling) with the decision of implementing the Ferber method and letting my daughter cry it out, not only in order to train her to sleep, but to train her in the way that me as mommy and Anthony as Daddy know what is best for her. Since it worked with our first daughter at around 11 months, I came to the conclusion that I can save myself many more months of unrestful nights and work hard now to help her to get on a good sleeping schedule. But what if she is hungry, you may ask (and I asked myself)? To that, I can only say, us moms know our children and their schedules. We typically know when they are hungry, sleepy, or need a clean diaper, and the difference between those cries. In the case of miss Lilah, I know, as her mommy, that she is "contently capable" (is that a thing?) of going 6+ hours at night without a feeding, since she has done it many many times. I also know that she has developed a nasty little pattern of crying when I'm in the middle of deep sleep, you know, the one where you don't even remember picking up the child. Well, she has learned that immediately she starts crying and immediately she gets picked up. Many many many times, I don't even nurse her. I simply pick her up, lay her on my chest or next to me and we are both back asleep before we even have time to wake up. Then hours later she will wake, truly hungry and only then, do I realize that she is in bed with me, not remembering how she got there. That said, I know she is content with being with me while we all sleep, not necessarily wanting to nurse. So, I resolved that I need to help her not wake up to be held.

Lilah has a pattern of waking only an hour or two after what we consider to be her bed time (usually 7-7:30). She considers this just a nap and expects to be picked up when she cries. I have not been consistent in not nursing her... for a while I was good about it, and pumped in it's place, to build up my milk freezer supply, then I fell back into the easy trap of nursing her one last time before I went to bed when she'd cry that last time. Not sure of my reasoning for this- the only conclusion I come to is my OWN selfish need of nursing and holding my sweet baby. Then it spilled over to, well, I'll just let her sleep in bed with me since she's here, already asleep, we're cuddly, and when she wakes next time, it'll be really easy to just reach over and grab her and my sleep will not be disturbed. Conclusion #1: My inconsistency is not helping! Lately, for some reason our sleep has really become disturbed in the middle of the night, which has absolutely contributed to our growing problem or increasingly wakeful nights. I think maybe Lilah is a light sleeper like me, so any little toss or turn gently wakes us from our light slumber. Conclusion #2: We were waking each other up by our natural sleep movements. There have been nights when I really believe Lilah is asleep, but she just moves all around! She may be asleep, but I am wide awake! Then I fumble around trying to pick her up, pat her, find her paci..etc etc, thus waking her up.

The Armor:
I've read several sleep books. Mainly Ferber, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.

Ok, so Night #1:

7:15: Easily fell asleep, after a full nursing.
9:30: Crying out of protest. I know she is not hungry. She wants to be picked up and held. I go to her and try to pat her back, give her paci, but refuse to pick her up. This makes her more mad. *This is the moment I decide something needs to happen. Before this, we had not planned on sleep training her this particular night.* I come down to Anthony and tell him we need to devise a plan. We talk about it, he encourages me and says we can do it because we NEED to, not only for us, but for her. We decide we won't let her cry for longer than 45 minutes. She cried for approximately 30 minutes, then fell right asleep.
11:00: Wakes and cries. I continue to not respond. Falls asleep after only 5 minutes of crying (not even really hard crying, just whining)

we decide that around 1am will be 6 hours of no food, so if she wakes at this time, I will feed her. And then 1 to 7am will be another 6 hour stretch.

2am: Anthony wakes up to deal with an Olivia issue and realizes Lilah has slept through her next feeding... he tells me, but I do not remember. I was sleeping so peacefully. :)
3:55am: I wake up to hear her "talking" in her crib. I go to her, pick her up and nurse her. She falls dead asleep after a full nursing and I put her back in crib. I fall asleep, easily and happily.
7am: I wake up to the happy realization (and somewhat panicky.."I hope she's still breathing.." thought) that she was asleep that whole time. I go to check and sure enough, STILL ASLEEP!
7:15: check on her again and her little head is popped up, just having woken up. I enthusiastically tell her good morning, pick her up and smother her in love and kisses for being such a good sport. She smiled. And was visibly happy and rested. We all survived. It actually was fairly easy (dare I say??).

Night #1 = Success.
Tomorrow: Night # 2. So far, asleep at 7:40 - and not a peep since.