Sleep Training: Day 1

Now that Hannah has been sleeping in her crib for almost a week, I decided it was time to start sleep training. For the past few nights, I've been able to get her to fall asleep in the crib by simply patting her back. This has been successful for night time and naps.

I forgot how painful this process is.

After following through the bedtime routine of bath, milk, story, swaddle, and song, I placed her in the crib at 8:00. I went in to pat her 5 minutes later, then, 10, took a shower, and then went in to pat her once again. At 8:53 she stopped crying. Steve remembers Nathan crying for about an hour and a half the first night. If all goes well, the cry time will go down significantly tomorrow, if not, the next night.

Sleep training is quite controversial among the mommy community. We went through with it with Nathan and I don't think (according to an anti-cry-it-out website)  "it is more likely to foster a whiny, unhappy, aggressive, and/or demanding child, one who has learned that one must scream to get needs met."

While Nathan may be whiny sometimes, I don't think he is more whinier than any other 2 year old. In fact, he may be better at communicating his needs than some kids his age. If you know Nathan, he is generally a happy kid. Just recently, he will tell me, "Mommy, Nathan happy." Sometimes he will even ask me if I'm happy. Such a sweet boy. 

Nathan is also an amazing sleeper. While we have had some rough patches with sleep, most nights he will go to sleep without a fight. He may sing/play in his crib/bed for a bit, but eventually he falls asleep on his own. 

Another fear that I had when I was first sleep training Nathan was that he would have separation anxiety. This ended up not being the case at all. He is totally OK with me leaving him somewhere with people that he knows. He is a very confident boy who is sweet and loving. 

Without a doubt, I know the initial few days of the sleep training process will raise a baby's stress levels, which "experts" say will affect a child. But I'd say the overall result of good sleep  outweighs a few nights of high cortisol levels. When I was a first time parent, I don't think the crying bothered me as much as doubts of whether or not I was scarring my kid for life by letting him cry-it-out. This time, the proof is in the pudding, or rather, our first born child.