A New Strategy for Sleep Training Night #4

We have a new strategy for tonight. I know that consistency is the key, but if you're doing something wrong, consistently doing it wrong will not fix the problem. After an exhausting night during which I did all of the night feeds by myself, I went back to the book and re-read several sections, searching for an answer, a clue, something that would tell me what we were doing "wrong". I think I may have found it.

We have decided to try a new bedtime. The book says that bedtime is usually between 6pm and 8pm and by choosing a bedtime of 7 - 7:30pm, that was actually a little on the late side. I also naively thought that *we* got to choose the bedtime that the kids have but when I was re-reading the book today, the book said that it was key to catch the wave of drowsiness that occurred and coordinating bedtimes with that time period. We don't get to choose bedtime; it will be chosen by the kids. If you didn't manage to catch that initial wave of drowsiness, that is when there is more excessive crying and fussing because the kids have become overtired. It appears that they are awake but it is really due to a "second wave" of energy which is due to the release of adrenaline which in turn makes it harder for them to fall asleep afterward

One success story that I found said that one family couldn't figure out why their kid was fussing between 7pm and 9pm until they moved the bedtime up a half hour to 6:30pm and that fixed it. Their kid was overtired by 7pm and then fussed and cried for 2 hours afterward. By having bedtime at 6:30pm, they caught the wave of drowsiness and were able to put their kid down without any crying or fussing. Let us hope that this is also the answer for us as well.

The kids were put down by 6:20pm. Both cried and rather than go through the details, suffice to say that they continued to cry, alternating between the two of them but the big thing was that Caitlyn fell asleep at around 7:15 and stayed asleep until the time of the first feed at 10pm! Victoria fussed and cried off and on until about 8:45pm but there were longer periods of silence between the fits of crying and fussing.

Improvement?

I think so!

We got up to feed them again at 1:30am but both went down without crying and then they slept until 6am! I can deal with the earlier wake up time if they sleep more at night so this is a definite step in the right direction!

Yay!