We (I say we but I mean "I") decided to start with naps because those are where he is really struggling. Yes, the nights are bad, but we hoped that if he could get his daytime sleep sorted out, it would help his nights. I really felt that if we attacked the nights first, we would just be left frustrated because he is just so exhausted at night because he doesn't sleep well during the day.
There are so many things no one can teach you about having a baby and you have to figure out for yourself, but the biggest thing is "momma knows best." Trust your instincts, so far, my instincts have only been wrong once, and even then I think it was more emotion than instinct. But a lot of other things weren't a good idea, and those were based on other's opinions, Dr.'s opinions, etc. I know Carson and I know what will work best for him and I will know when he is ready. And he was finally ready.
I did so much research before starting. I read blogs, books, and webpages galore. The biggest issue we had was that Carson only naps for 30min at a time. No one addressed this issue! It was finally a blog combined with a book that gave me the starting framework of what may get Carson to sleep longer. This lady's son was a short napper as well, so most nap and sleep schedules didn't work for her and she refrormatted Marc Weissbluth's book "Healthy Sleep Habits" to fit her needs. I got the book from the library by ebook and read it, concluding that it made sense to use many of his takes and suggestions for Carson.
We decided to use the extinction method of nap training, which according to most circles would be the cruelest. But like I said, I knew my son and me going back in there to check on him every 5-10 minutes only makes him so much more upset. Extinction means I lay him down for his nap and leave him to cry until he goes to sleep, no longer than 30 min. Now, I don't just lay him down whenever, I lay him down when he is tired AND when it is time for a nap. This is key! If you lay any baby down who is used to being rocked to sleep, they are going to cry for a little bit. But lay them down when they are 100% awake at the "time" you feel is convenient and you are going to have a LOT of crying.
Based on Marc's book and Carson's schedule, two naps a day wasn't going to work, but three would (he was currently taking between 4 and 5 thirty minute naps). The first nap needs to be taken within 2 hrs of waking. That was not a big deal, Carson usually wants to go to sleep an hour to an hour and a half after waking. I watched all week around what time Carson was waking up in the morning, and he was waking up between 6 and 6:30am. Marc suggests the morning nap around 9am, but Carson was not going to get there, but we could shoot for 8-8:30 and go from there. The first nap needs to be longer than 30 min and if your child wakes up crying and obviously still sleepy, you are supposed to leave them there to cry for up to another 30 min if necessary. Your child should then go down for their next nap between 12-2pm and then the last nap, you are to put the child down between 4-5pm, depending on when they went down for the middle nap and how long they slept. Sleep scheduling is seriously like rocket science. So much planning, prep, knowledge, whew. Anyway here is the idea:
- 1st nap, as close to 9am as possible but within 2 hrs of waking, should be an hourish long
- 2nd nap, child goes down between 12-2pm, nap should be 1.5-2hrs long.
- 3rd nap, optional (if child goes down at 2pm and sleeps 2 hrs), only 45-1hr.
Well, the first day, Carson woke up at 6:15am, so I should put him down around 8:15am, pretty close to that 9am window we were trying to hit. Well, the biggest part about nap training is teaching baby to fall asleep on his own and to put himself back to sleep. So when he could no longer keep his little eyes open, but was not seriously overtired, I rocked him and sang until he was sufficiently drowsy and then put him in his crib. Normally we would have just kept rocking to sleep. Well, he cried for 20 min. It was so hard! I was crying too. And then he woke up after only 40 min, shorter than the hour he was supposed to sleep but he woke up chattering so I felt bad making him cry some more so I let him get up. That was around 9:25am. By 11:30 he was fading. A big part of making this a success is to watch your child and know when to put them down so they don't get overtired, because then they sleep even less. So I got him ready for another nap and laid him down, only one and half minutes of fussing and he was out. He woke up after 30 min though, so now we had to do some more training, which is to just leave him to cry for up to 30 min. If he cried that long you pick them up and then just go about your day and try to get to the next nap time. Carson went back to sleep after 5 minutes of crying. This cry period was much easier for me to allow because our afternoons are always so hard because Carson is so overtired! He obviously does not want to be awake from the nap but cannot go back to sleep. He woke up several more times and we let him fuss, but always went back to sleep, sleeping a total of an hour and 45 min, even though the sleep wasn't consistent. Two down, one to go.
He had woken up from the previous nap around 1:45pm, but by 3:30pm was fading again, I kept him up until 4pm because if I put him down at 3:30 and he only slept 30min, he wouldn't have made it to bedtime. When I laid him down at 4pm, he didn't even fuss, just gave me one whimper of "you put me down!" and then promptly went to sleep and slept an hour. The first day was done!
We had to do this schedule consistently for the whole weekend and we had to be religious about it! No cheater naps (5-10min snoozes places), no sleeping in the car, no pushing his naptime to earlier or later so we could go places, etc. But it paid off. By Monday, he was taking a 45min morning nap, a 1.25-2 hr afternoon nap and a 45 min to 1 hr evening nap. All with little or no fussing when we put him down. Huge strides for the little guy.
But like I said, Sunday last week he started teething so we had to be mindful of the crying and try to distinguish if it was sleepy cries or pain cries. Unfortunately, Carson has somewhat regressed this week with his naps because of the nanny and her not being 100% sure of what to do, but she is getting it.
I really do feel like getting these naps under control is going to help with nighttime. It will make the transition of him going to sleep on his own at bedtime much easier and it has helped with establishing an actual bedtime and wake up time. For the last week, Carson now goes to bed between 6:45-7:15pm and wakes up between 6-6:30am, which is acceptable for a baby his age. Now, if it were up to me, he would go to bed at 8pm and wake up at 7am, that schedule works much better for me, but Carson isn't me and his little body doesn't seem to want to be on that schedule. So that is where the mommy intuition and attachment parenting comes in. Even though I am "nap training" I am training to my baby's needs, not my own personal schedule. Although I'm sure many mom's and others would say that I could get him on that schedule if I wanted to and that I am being ridiculous. And maybe I am, but I'm allowed, it's my first kid. :-)
I'm so glad I waited to do this until Carson was ready. I read stories of babies crying for days, and people told me to give it five days. It only took 2 really, and he still wakes and falls back to sleep, but only with minimal fussing and more and more he is sleeping over an hour without any waking. So there you go, this post was more for me than anyone else, but if anyone has any questions, maybe I can help a little with all the reading I've done.
