Monday, April 23, 2012

Resolving our sleep issues

This post might be super boring (no pictures) and very obvious for some but I wanted to document it for future reference.  And yes I know, we should have done this a lot sooner!

I think we've finally rounded the corner in the sleep department but I haven't posted about it because I didn't want to jinx it! 

After we got back from Sanibel we were going in Kinley's room almost every hour of the night to put her paci back in & a few times that wasn't even helping her go back to sleep.  I finally got so fed up & exhausted that I was ready to try to let her fuss a little more.   Normally I waited a few minutes but wanted to get in there before she actually got really upset.

On April 13 (Friday) I came across a blog & the mom said that they solved their sleep issues using a technique called "progressive waiting."  I read reviews on Amazon about the book that she recommended and bought it for my Kindle that same day because reviews were so positive. 

It's written by Ferber & I know he got a lot of crap for the cry it out method but the book has been updated and doesn't recommend shutting the door and letting the baby cry all night like (I think) it used to.

The idea is that the 1st night you let them cry 3 minutes, then check & comfort (but not pick up), 5 minutes, then check, 10 minutes, then check & if they are still fussing, every 10 minutes after that. Then we repeated the process every time she woke up at night (I think 3 other times that night).

Every day the time that you wait gets progressively longer and the issue should be resolved within 7 days, if not less.

It was tough the first night but not as bad as I had expected!  Like our doctor said, Kinley needed to figure out how to sooth herself to sleep. Darn doctor knew what she was talking about because Kinley was only up ONCE the next night and twice on Sunday.

(BUT the Dr also said don't go in her room at all & there was no way I was following that rule...I'm still a little sensitive to her crying, lol). 

We've been doing ok for about 10 days now but we've had an off night or 2 where she woke up a few times instead of once.  I think we even had 1 night where she didn't wake up until 5:30am and she hadn't done that since before Christmas!

We also had to stop giving her the paci at night because otherwise we weren't going to let her figure out how to sooth herself. That broke my heart & I was in tears before we put her to bed because I felt sooo bad! But she figured it out, thank goodness!

Now we're phasing out the paci & she doesn't really seem to mind. It's a lot sooner than I had anticipated but whatever works! We'll still give it to her during the day if she's fussy though.

Hopefully this sleep pattern continues so we can all be a little less grumpy during the day! :)

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