"sleep learning"

It was a bit of a bumpy road for Palmer's sleeping this past week. For about a month now he has been going to sleep between 9 and 10 and I've been feeding him between 4 and 6 in the morning. If he woke up between those times I would go in and rock him or give him his pacifier til he fell back asleep. It used to only happen once a night but for the past week he's been waking up at least twice and fussing quite a bit! I know it's not about hunger because he is getting plenty to eat during the day and if he truly wanted milk he wouldn't accept the pacifier substitute. I decided to take another look at a book I bought while pregnant called "The Sleepeasy Solution". Basically, it's a nicer version of the cry-it-out method and you check on them once every five minutes, giving verbal soothing until they fall asleep. You're letting them figure out how to get to sleep on their own instead of relying on rocking or nursing from mommy. It also has lots of good tips about things like creating a good sleep environment and routine to help the process along.

Since the basis of sleep learning is that the baby learns to soothe themselves back to sleep when they wake in the middle of the night, we decided to lose the swaddle since it keeps Palmer from getting to his hands to suck on. They advise going without a pacifier because babies get upset and wake when it falls out of their mouth and they can't get it back. The book suggested an earlier bedtime than we've been using because babies his age need about 11 hours of nighttime sleep. It's a little counter-intuitive but they say the less sleep a baby gets at night, the worse they will be at napping during the day (due to the stress hormone cortisol that keeps them "wired"). Last night after feeding him at 8:00 we put him down at 8:30 and began the sleep learning process! This involves 5 agonizing minutes at a time of listening to him cry :( Luckily it only took 8 minutes so after one check-in he was konked out! I did a "dream feed" at 11:00 to tide him over til morning, and set my alarm for 5:00 to feed him again. The idea is that if you feed them BEFORE they wake up on their own and get upset, they'll go back to sleep more easily. Also, you avoid confusing them by sometimes feeding them when they cry and sometimes not even picking them up.

Palmer jabbered to himself and fussed for about 15 minutes after I fed him at 5:00 then CRIED for probably four 5-minute check-ins. Finally, the last time I went in there to talk to him I gave him a little animal head blankie which he promptly clutched for dear life and BAM!- fell asleep. He slept til 7:30 which was our planned "wake up time" at 11 hours after his bed time. He was a happy baby this morning at Lowe's and now he's taking his first nap of the day, alone in his crib! (This book suggests tackling nighttime and naps all at once). He has always slept longer when held during the day, but let's face it- eventually he'll be too big for that and I'd like to be able to get things done while he sleeps! You do the same 5 minute check-ins at nap time until they fall asleep and leave them in their crib for 1 hour. It took 10 minutes for him to put himself to sleep- hope he gets some good rest after all that hard work :)

P.S. Above I mentioned a "dream feed"- which I am really a fan of after just one night! Here's how it goes- right before I go to bed, I just barely wake him up enough to nurse a little and then put him right back down to sleep. This stretches out the sleep time of a 4 month old like him who can't quite go all night without eating. When he is a couple months older, I'll stop the "dream feed" and probably the preemptive 5 am feed too and see if he can make it all 11 hours! I'll keep y'all updated. . .