Sleep Training

We attempted sleep training this week.  Definitely not my favorite part of parenting thus far.

Braxton has been pretty good at sleeping... he'll go down around 7 or 7:30 at night, then sleeps until 3 or 4 am and is ready to eat.  Getting up at 3:30 then again at 5 was starting to wear on me and we figured its time to drop the middle of the night feeding.  Our pediatrician said he should be sleeping through the night anytime after 4 months and recommended the Ferber Method.  It's essentially letting them cry it out with some intervention... You go in and sooth them after 5 minutes of crying, then after 10 min, then after 15 min, then again after 15 min, etc... until they are back asleep.

Night 1:

He threw us for a loop and woke up at 11:30 pm.  He started crying and I went in after 5 minutes, picked him up, soothed him, told him I loved him, and then put him back down.  More crying.  Did the same thing after 10 min, then after another 15 min, and another 15 min.  During the second 15 min interval he finally fell back asleep and slept until 5 am.  He cried for about 40 minutes total and it was torture for mama.

Night 2:

He slept through the whole night and woke up at 5 am again.  We got him up and fed him since we were getting ready for work anyways.  Then he fell back asleep for another few hours when we put him in the car for the babysitters.

Night 3: 

Slept until 5 am again but instead of getting him up, we tried to get him to sleep until 7 am.  He whined and fussed off and on for about an hour but never really started crying.  Then slept until 7:30 am.

Night 4:

Slept the whole night until 7 am.  Awesome!  Hoping that we have a fast learner!

Night 5:

Slept until 5:30 am, then whined and fussed off and on until 6:30 am.  He started to cry so we just got him up for the day and fed him.

I'm  hoping we can keep it up and he'll sleep until at least 6:30 or 7 am.  Not having to get up at 3 or 4 had been amazing!  He still isn't the best napper during the day... sometimes he'll sleep for a good hour or two and other times it's 30 minute cat naps all day long.  We are also guilty and have been letting him nap in the swing.  He sleeps great in his crib at night but hates to nap in there and we'd rather him have the rest then enforce the crib.  Hopefully we can transition soon :)

Wish us and our little sleeper good luck!