The Sleepeasy Solution Training Continues

Okay, so the last two nights have been rough, but I can see progress, so I'm happy.

Two nights ago, Alex went down fairly easily. After crying for 50 minutes the first night, I wasn't sure what to expect, but he only cried for 20 minutes. But then, unlike the night before where Alex slept other than when I got him for a feeding, Alex woke up at 1:30. I was planning on giving him a feed at 2, but because he woke himself up, he needed to get himself back to sleep without a feed. So I got up and started doing my check-ins (basically I go in and say something like, "Alex, Mommy is here and it's okay to go to sleep. I love you, and I'll come back in a little while to check on you"). So  I did that 5-10-15 minutes and then continued at 15 minutes. Well, he continued to cry and wail for an hour and a half. Talk about hurting my little mommy heart. I did not enjoy hearing it! But I kept reminding myself that he would be better for it and that I would be better when I could get a full night's sleep. But I like that I go in every 15 minutes to remind him that I am here, I am not ignoring him, I haven't left him, and that I love him. I think that's better for both parent and child then just letting the child cry it out.

So finally around 3 a.m., he fell asleep. Of course I'm exhausted and want to go to bed, but one little thing: I still have to feed him. Of course, I couldn't feed him right then, so I waited 20 minutes and then got him up for a feed. When I put him down, it seemed like he was going to wake up and cry, but luckily that only lasted 30 seconds. So I crawled into bed at 3:30, and then proceeded not to fall asleep for at least an hour (I tried not looking at the clock because then I would get more upset). So probably around 4:45 I fell asleep. And then Alex woke up at 5. Now because he woke up before 6, I wasn't supposed to get him out, but I was supposed to do check-ins. Yeah, that didn't happen. I was way too tired. So instead, I just turned down the monitor and tried to sleep. Then when I woke at 6:20, I went and got Alex, who was still crying, out of his crib.

The naps yesterday went well, though. He hasn't been wanting a bottle before naps, probably because he eats too close to naptime, and so all I've been doing is reading him a book and holding him a couple minutes before putting him down. It must be okay because for both naps he fell asleep after 7 minutes of fussing.

Last night was better than the previous night for the most part. Alex went down pretty good, only fussing for 13 minutes (so it's getting less each night), but then he woke up at midnight. So I started check-ins and he was asleep after a half hour. Then I got up at 2 to feed him, but I woke him up too much and so after he was done eating (and probably wasn't happy with how much he got because it's gotten less each night), he started to fuss. So again I had to do check-ins, but he fell asleep after 24 minutes, so he's getting better at getting himself to sleep, which is good. So even though he woke me up once and kept me up once, it went better because total, he was up less time than the previous night. And he didn't wake up this morning till after 6.

So tonight I'm only feeding him 1 oz at each feeding and tomorrow night I won't be feeding him at all and we'll see if he sleeps through the night!