Sleep Training

We used the (5) minute method. Do your calming nighttime routine and then turn out the lights and put them in the crib awake. Tell them it’s time for sleep and leave. You choose an amount of minutes you think you can handle letting them cry (if they do cry), then go in and quietly reassure them (don’t pick them up) and leave after a minute or two. Each night increase the time by 1 minute. Only pick them up if they need a diaper change or if you need to feed them. (My son is still a little small so we do 2 feeds during his 12 hour sleep.) but immediately put them back in the crib and leave ASAP. It can take up to two weeks to really work with babies over six months because they understand object permanence now. And they also understand that when they do certain things you react a certain way. We as parents have to start training them instead of them training us. I couldn’t do the CIO method especially because my son would cry so hard he’d choke. This ended up working really well for us. He was putting himself to sleep after about 4 nights. We follow the same process if he wakes in the middle of the night and for nap time.

The Ferber method worked for us paired with the Hatch white noise and nightlight machine. Night one she cried the longest 40 mins total. Checked on 5 mins, then 10 then 15 mins.. Night two she only cried for 5 mins. Night three only when I first walked out the room. By the time I was at the end of the hallway she was done and looking at hatch before dosing off. She stills cries when o initially leave but literally like for 10 seconds then realizes oh it's sleepy time. She stares at the blue hatch light then falls asleep. Same goes for naps during the day. I know every baby is different. Mine goes down easy now but she also doesn't sleep through the night. She's up usually around 4am. I feed her and normally have to rock her back to sleep. She wakes up hungry.

We used Little Z’s. It does involve some crying and it’s minimal. The routine is really nice.