Well after nearly a month of unpredictable nights and an inconsolable Emily, I was at my wits end. She had slept so well her first 3 months, and as amateur parents we didn't appreciate it nearly as much as we should have. So earlier this week while wandering through our favorite neighborhood bookstore, I found a used copy of a sleep book by the "baby coach." Apparently this woman has trained over 100 babies to sleep through the night by the time they were 12 weeks old, AND she didn't employ the "cry it out" method which we find too heart-breaking to consider.
The book turned out to be a real page-turner and I finished it in 2 hours Wednesday morning. In a nutshell, the author claims there are 4 key steps we need to follow.
1.) Emily should only nurse 4 times during the day because stretching out her feedings will allow her to go for a full 12 hours at night without needing to eat.
2.) There should be no napping between her 3rd and 4th feedings to ensure she is very tired when we put her in bed.
3.) We need to leave her in her crib for a full 12 hours at night, something we have never tried before.
4.) Finally, when Emily cries at night we should be by her side to comfort her as she soothes herself. This means no eye contact, no talking above a whisper, no picking her up, and no feeding her. Our goal should be to support her as she discovers how to calm herself.
Reducing Emily's feedings from 6x to 4x per day was a snap. She didn't even fuss when I made the switch. Then for the first time ever we put her to bed at 7:30pm and skeptically tip-toed around until we went to bed. I was certain she'd wake up crying before midnight, but shockingly when I heard her and turned to look at the clock I saw it was 5:30am!!! Matt and I then spent 1 hour by her side, comforting her as she struggled to calm down and fall back to sleep. She eventually did, but only after Matt and I left her room to pow-wow in the kitchen about how to proceed. It seems that once she knew we weren't there, she was able find her inner strength to soothe herself.
Chalking the first night up to luck, Matt put Emily to bed at 7:30pm last night and I again went to sleep fully expecting to be woken in a couple hours by a screaming baby. But it didn't happen. Emily whimpered a few times around 4:30am, but it never turned into a full cry so we didn't even go in to check on her. Then at 7:15am when our alarm went off, we peeked in her crib and found Emily lying on her tummy in the corner of her crib admiring the birdies on her bumper. When she noticed we were there, she turned to greet us with a huge grin! Seems she doesn't have any abandonment issues from her night alone. Phew!
Wish us luck on night 3 tonight!!
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Becky was sweet enough to send us this book via Amazon a few weeks ago. Lillian is nearly 8 months old and wakes 3-5 times/night. I nurse her back to sleep each time. It's killing me. I finished the book two days ago and we're going to try and implement the tactics that we can. Lillian has always been a snacker and slow weight-gainer (she had stomach surgery when she was 18 hours old and I think that that has something to do with it), so I don't think eating only 4 times/day will work for her, but some of the other methods might over time (like the 3-5 minute shushing). We'll see. I'm glad the author's solutions worked so well for you and Becky, though!
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