Sleep Training 101

For the past week or so, there are a few things that have been on my mind.

1)  When is Owen going to learn to sleep without the swaddle on?

2)  When is the right time for us to do some sleep training?

It just so happens that both of these questions were answered on June 23, 2012.

I had tried Owen without the swaddle for a nap and he would do ok,

but he didn't seem to sleep as long and as soundly as normal.

  

I would watch on the video monitor and he would be laying there as still as can be

and then all of a sudden it's like he thought he was falling and his two little arms

would shoot straight out in front of him as if to steady himself.  

Then they would slowly lower back down to his sides,

and 10 seconds later...right back out straight in front of him.

 It was quite comical to watch, but probably not the most restorative sleep for him.

But lately he had been fighting his way out of the swaddle more and more.

I felt like he wanted to be out of it so bad, but he slept so much better when he was snuggled. 

 It worked out perfectly that we had been thinking about starting to let him soothe

himself to sleep anyway.

We decided to give it a try....

I fed him his last bottle of the night, laid him in his crib and let him fuss.  

His arms came out of the swaddle, his Nuk came out of his mouth,

but I let him be, confident that he would figure it out. 

(Ok, maybe not confident, but really hoping and praying that I wouldn't 

have to suffer through his crying for all that long) 

Night 1  - He cried for 20 minutes and much to my surprise, he fell asleep. 

Completely out of the swaddle and no Nuk.

He woke up an hour later but we let him be and he fell right back asleep on his own.  

When I got up to feed him in the middle of the night I did the same thing.

Laid him in bed, gave him a kiss on his forehead and walked out of the room.

He laid in his crib awake for a little while, but fell asleep on his own.

Night 2 - Laid him in bed Awake, No swaddle, No Nuk.

Cried 25 minutes and fell asleep.

Woke a few times after that, but just fussed for a minute and fell back asleep

Night 3 - Cried 5 minutes, laid awake for about 20 minutes trying to get comfortable

and fell asleep.

I am proud to say that Owen is now Swaddle Free, Nuk Free and seems 

to be able to go to bed pretty well on his own.  

We weren't even necessarily worried about getting rid of the Nuk, but he

seemed to let us know he didn't want it anymore.  We would put it

in his mouth and he would chew on it and spit it out instead of 

sucking on it like he used to do.  

I do realize that every day is a new journey and he might very well regress, 

but one thing I know for sure is that he really seems to love

having the freedom of no swaddle.