Sleep Training

So, the Chicago trip was a success. No children got lost or kidnapped. But after spending most of a three day weekend in the car, Baby Abigail is having some anger issues about her car seat. I’m sure she’ll get over it.

When our vacation in the rear view mirror, Ashes and I decided to focus on a few things. One of them is getting Abigail to sleep through the night. She would sleep 3-4 hours when first going to bed, then wake up every couple hours after that. After a few nights when she would only wake up once or so, I thought she might figure it out on her own, but that didn’t happen. So training it is.

Unfortunately, we are both wusses, and there was no way we were just going to let her cry in her crib alone they way some recommend. Instead, there’s a procedure of more gentle sleep training where you hang out with the baby in the crib, moving further away every few days.

I had my doubts, especially the first night. We both hung by her crib, but Abigail was not having it, being used to nursing and snuggling to sleep every night. Abigail is not a screamer, but she screamed that night, and cried, for an intolerable amount of time. It was terrible, and by the time she cried herself to sleep we both weren’t sure we were doing the right thing.

Ashes and I balance each other out. When one of us has a dumb idea, the other one is there to keep us on track. When we agree on something, it’s usually a sure sign that it’s the right thing to do. And we both agreed that sleep training was terrible, which just made me doubt more that we were doing the right thing.

But we kept to it, following the procedure. We didn’t really have a lot of choice. Ashes couldn’t keep getting up two or three times a night to nurse Abigail back to sleep, eventually bringing her to bed with us at four in the morning and not being able to comfortably sleep. It was not a sustainable solution.

And Abigail went to sleep easier the second night. She would still wake up in the middle of the night, and getting her back to sleep without the usual crutches was not fun, but it got better each night. Last night she slept completely through the night, or completely enough that she didn’t wake us up. I am loathe to claim victory after one night, but it’s a real good start.