All Aboard the Sleep Train

Addie is 3 month old and that is old enough to sleep through the night. Theoretically. Her tummy is now mature that she can get all her nutrients during the day, and, like an adult, not need to snack in the middle of the night. Our plan is to train Addie to stop relying on her nighttime feeding and to get her to sleep though the night – all in our one bedroom apartment. The fear is that in the process I will go insane from her heart piercing cries and our upstairs neighbors will kill us.

It is here that we board the Sleep Train.

Sleeping Training Night 1:
On Monday night we put Addie to bed at 8:00 as usual but introduced a “Dream Feed” at 11:00. This is when Cap gives her a bottle while trying to keep her asleep. She slurped down the bottle and went back to sleep. We put her back in her bassinet without burping her because she’s so relaxed she doesn’t gulp in any air. I had feared this stage because she usually slept the longest on her own from 8:00 to anywhere from 1 to 3 pm.

After her dream feed, she slept until about 2:30 am at which point she fussed and flopped around and eventually cried. Operation Ignore was in place. This is heart-wrenching. She was so annoyed at being ignored that she engaged her Hulk powers and busted out of her Velcro swaddling. I was afraid that if I tried to fix it I’d arouse her more or that she’d just continue to do this all night prolonging her crying fit. To re-swaddle or not - mind you, she’s never slept without being tightly swaddled. I was frozen and unable to make any decisions. When Addie really cries I become incapacitated. Cap made the decision to just take off the swaddling and force her to calm herself. It worked! She cried herself back to sleep after maybe 20 minutes and then had another crying fit maybe 30 minutes later.

Still, I was more traumatized then Addie and had to go sleep on the couch where I was at least not one foot away from her sad susurrations. She slept until 6:30 at which point I was allowed to pick her up and feed her. She even went back to sleep until 8:30.

WOW. We did it. She went from 11 until 6:30 without eating. Now we need to get her to do it without waking and having a freak-out.

Sleeping Training Night 2. Operation Ignore is still in effect. Same thing. In to bed at 8:00 (now un-swaddled in cute footed pajamas), Dream Feed and then she slept until 4:30 when she fussed and whined for maybe 10 minutes. Improvement!

Sleeping Training Night 3: Same as night 2. She’s so close!

Tonight I have confidence that she can sleep straight though. This is the real deal and will hopefully be the pattern she will follow every night. I’m so proud of her ability to calm herself and I look forward to full nights of sleep myself.

The next thing to tackle will be moving her from her bassinet to her crib but one step at a time. I think I need to bring our neighbors a bottle of wine for not complaining during this process. Good wine makes good neighbors.

Sweet Dreams!