Sleep training results

mamaanddata
Aug 9, 2015
6 min read

After extensive research, which I discussed in my first sleep training post, we decided to use a modified graduated extinction method from the Ferber book. Here are the detailed results of our sleep training:

Night 1

Put in bed at 7:50
Cried for 3 minutes, checked on her
Cried for 5 minutes, checked
10 minutes, checked (around this point Nick poured himself a glass of whiskey -- it was really hard to listen to her cry and do nothing)
10 minutes, checked
10 minutes, checked
Diaper change
10 minutes, fell asleep (9:02)
Total crying time: 48 minutes
Woke up at 10:09 -- fed her (she's in a growth spurt right now, so waking more frequently to eat)
She nursed to sleep. I heard her wake up at 12@:30 and 3:30 and whine briefly but then put herself back to sleep.
Woke up to eat at 4:30. Nursed to sleep, but woke up when put back in crib. Played quietly. Fell asleep by herself, but then Nick snored and woke her up. She fell asleep again by herself, but woke up a few minutes later when she sneezed. By that time it was 5:37 and we got up for the day.

Night 2

Put in bed at 8:20
Cried for 5 minutes, checked
7 minutes, checked
12 minutes, checked
During the next 12 minute block she stopped crying on and off. She stopped for good after 6 minutes (8:56pm)
Total crying time: 36 minutes
Woke up to eat at 1:40, fell back asleep nursing
Woke up to eat at 5:40, fell asleep nursing.
Up for the day at 7:05

Night 3

Fell asleep nursing at 8:05. We considered waking her up before putting her down in her crib, but decided to just transfer her while she was asleep
Woke up at 9:42 and I fed her again. Put her down in her crib awake at 9:55
Cried 7 minutes, checked
diaper change
10 minutes, checked
12 minute block - stopped crying after 2 minutes
Pulled pacifier out and cried for a minute, then small bursts of crying on and off
Started crying again and continued for 7 minutes
Fell asleep for 5 minutes
Cried for 6 minutes, then fell asleep (11:08pm)
Total crying: about 36 minutes
This night was the worst -- I cried almost as much as she did.
Woke up to eat at 4am, back to sleep until 5:45am

Night 4

Put in bed at 9:03pm
10 minute block - stopped crying after 6 minutes, then started again and cried for another 1-2 minutes
Total crying time: 7-8 minutes
It was too good to be true. We were scared to rejoice in how little she cried, for fear that she would wake up again and shatter our hopes. But no, she stayed asleep.
Woke to eat at 2:30am
Put back in her crib awake and she babbled quietly to herself until she fell asleep on her own (3:15am)
This left me feeling like a miracle had occurred. I'm so afraid it won't happen again!
Woke to eat at 6:30, fell asleep nursing
Up for the day at 7am.

Night 5

Read books until almost asleep
Down at 8:45, no crying

Night 6

Down at 8:50
Cried for 12 minutes, checked
Stopped after another 10 minutes
Total crying time: 22 minutes

Night 7

Put down at 7:45 because had been up for 3.5 hours
Cried 15 minutes, checked
Cried another 2 minutes
Woke up after 40 minutes, but fell back asleep immediately when we picked her up
Total crying time: 17 minutes
(The next morning we found out that she scratched her ear, so that might have been part of the reason for more crying. Definitely check that nails are short before starting sleep training! I did, but one didn't get cut quite short enough.)

Night 8

Nursed to sleep at 8:30

Night 9

Down at 8:25
On and off crying for 5 minutes

Night 10

Nursed to sleep at 7:30 (had been up for 3.5 hours)
Woke up at 9:15 and nursed
Cried about 1 minute

Other things that helped us:

A later bedtime. All the books say that you should be putting a 6 month old down around 7-7:30. One even has a heading called "the magical 7:30 bedtime." When we looked back at Little Bear's sleep logs, there were only a couple of times she actually went to sleep at 7:30. The good times when she was sleeping through the night, she went to bed around 8:30 or 9:00. No wonder we were fighting for hours to get her to bed; we were trying to put her down before she was ready to sleep. The Ferber book has a chart of sleep phases that shows that in the few hours right before night sleep it's actually almost impossible for you to go to sleep (the "forbidden zone" or something like that). He explains that this is because your body is building up the "sleep pressure" to fall asleep for a long period at night. So all those times we were trying to get Little Bear to sleep at 7:30, she was still in the forbidden zone and could not go to sleep not matter what. We got frustrated that she wouldn't get sleepy and she got mad that we were trying to put her to bed when she wasn't ready. According to one source, her bedtime should move closer to 7:30 once she's a little older, like 7 or 8 months, after she drops her last nap of the day.
Figuring out her real sleep cues. The early bedtime problem was also compounded by the advice to put your baby to sleep as soon as they show the first sign of tiredness, like rubbing eyes or yawning. In the evening, as soon as Little Bear rubbed her eyes once, we rushed to start the bedtime routine. Now, after paying more attention to her sleep cues, I can see that she's not always actually tired when she yawns or rubs her eyes. I have to look for her to start slowing down or even getting a little fussy (she has a "nyah nyah nyah" noise she makes when she wants something), THEN that's when she's ready to start the bedtime routine. The combination of thinking she needed a 7pm bedtime with misreading her sleep signals led to us trying to put her down too early.
Turning the lights on bright when we wake up and opening the blinds in the bedroom during naps. Circadian rhythms are set by exposure to light. When Little Bear would get up in the morning, I would turn on lights, but not "full blast" because I knew she'd be going back down for a morning nap before too long (usually within 1-1.5 hours). Mistake. Turning the lights on tells baby that the day is starting and sets their clock accordingly. We were also letting her nap in a completely dark room (our bedroom, where her crib is, has blackout shades). So when she woke up, I think she sometimes didn't know if it was daytime or nighttime. Now, she sleeps in the room with the blinds partially up, so when she wakes and sees daylight, she knows it's a nap and she can get up. When she wakes and it's dark, she knows it's nighttime and she should go back to sleep.

CONCLUSIONS

We've now stopped with the graduated extinction because she only cries about 5-10 minutes before settling herself when we put her down. If she cries for longer than that, we pick her up and calm her down. She's also been good about going back to sleep in the middle of the night, usually nursing to sleep or, if not, then putting herself back to sleep in her crib. She's been waking up twice at night now instead of once, but I think part of that is me rushing in too early to feed her (we are coming off a growth spurt). So last night when she woke up at 2:30 we let her fuss (wasn't crying, just complaining) and she fell back asleep after 10 minutes. She woke up to eat at 4:30 and then went back to sleep until 7:30.

So the graduated extinction approach definitely seems to have helped us, as we went from bedtimes at 11 and sleeping with her on the couch to bedtimes around 9 and one to two wakeups at night. It was probably the hardest thing we've done so far, though. Even though her total crying times were not very long, they always felt longer because we weren't actively doing anything to try to help. For now we're feeling pretty good about our routine, though she still has some days/nights where she fights sleep it's not nearly as bad as before.