So for those of you who endured my novel length post on our sleep training methods with Sam you may be interested to know what became of that. I'm here to give you our current progress.
After Day 2 I noticed a trend for Sam. If I put him down within a couple minutes of when he fell asleep he would put up little or no fight and then sleep happily in his playpen for the duration of his nap. If I put him down before he fell asleep then he has something to say about it. If I waited too long after he fell asleep he would wake up and think that the 10 minutes he was asleep counted for his nap and be up for the next couple hours, albeit a little cranky. So I went with that and it's worked like a charm.
After going with this method I listened to this episode on No Cry Sleep Solutions from the podcast New Moms, New Babies (it's made by the same people who make my favorite pregnancy podcast - Pregtastic) and learned something interesting. Apparently the first 10-15 minutes of a baby's sleep cycle take off the edge of tiredness that the baby feels. So if the baby wakes up after that first little bit of sleep they feel like they've gotten rest, but their body hasn't really received all the benefits that they need. So, they won't feel like they need to go back to sleep but they'll still be cranky. (sorry, I know I've made that more confusing, I'd recommend listening to that podcast if that didn't make sense)
It was interesting to me because it totally explained what I was seeing with Samuel. After figuring this out I've been able to get Sam to take all of his naps in his playpen and at least start out every night in there as well (I'm still too lazy to make him sleep in there all night, it's way too easy to just let him sleep with me.
I'm much happier now knowing that our safety concerns with Sam are alleviated during naps. Our next step is working on sleeping through the night. Sam still sleeps nothing like unto through the night, but I don't know how much of that is a result of our wacky schedule and how much of it is poor training on our part. We make it work, but it'd be nice if we could clear that milestone too. I'm sure I'll let you know if/when that happens :)
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2 comments:
I am glad that he is sleeping better in the day at least! Hang in there!
Oh Britt, reading this post was like reading something I would have written when Chandler was 6 months old (or 8 or 10 months old!) It's amazing to me that no matter what you try, some babies are just not good sleepers! I have learned a lot in this past year in terms of helping Chandler learn to sleep through the night, so if you ever want my two cents please feel free to ask; there is nothing more frustrating than having a baby who refuses to sleep through the night! I'm glad he's doing better with naps (and the whole first ten minutes of naptime info was new to me, thanks for sharing!) Good luck, you're doing a great job and we sure miss all three of you!! Ü
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