Sleep Training

Being a parent hasn't been too difficult up until now. We made sure that Mia had a dry diaper, a full tummy and plenty of rest and we were good to go. Now that Mia is approaching 6 months old, she is getting smarter and smarter and we now realize that we need to break some bad habits that we've started. (Bad habits including: nursing/rocking Mia to sleep and nursing Mia every time she wakes in the night no matter how long it has been since her last feeding.) I am proud of the fact that we have been fairly strict with being sure that she goes to sleep around the same time every night and once it's bedtime, she doesn't leave her nursery until morning. In the past few months, Mia's sleep habits have been getting worse and worse. She slept better at 3 months then she does now. Since, I am about to lose my mind due to lack of sleep, Joe and I decided that we need to fix the problem before it gets any worse.

We started sleep training this weekend. Friday night was rough and Joe and I had a hard time listening to our baby cry. We decided to follow the Ferber method which means we did our bedtime routine and put Mia to bed sleepy but not asleep. After 5 minutes of crying, we could go into her room and tell her we love her and comfort her for about 30 seconds without picking her up, then we went in her room 10 min later, 15 min later and thank goodness she fell asleep after the third time checking on her. 30 minutes of total crying. : ( Saturday night was a little better, she fell asleep after about 15 minutes and tonight she fell asleep within minutes!! I am excited that the training is working and the crying was for a good reason. Now, I hope she continues to get up less and less in the middle of the night. We were not a fan of letting Mia, "cry it out" before now since we felt she was too young but I feel really good about the decision we made so everyone can get better sleep and Joe and I can feel like we are running the house instead of our 6 month old. ; )

Happy Sleeping,

Kellie

Mia enjoying some rice cereal.