The Hard Part Is Done

If you remember from this post, we were trying to "train (Ian) in the skill of sleep."

After several uncomfortable days and nights of having to hear him cry his heart out until he fell asleep, we are proud to say that our son can now fall asleep within a few minutes of being put down for a nap or bedtime. Woohoo!!!!!!!!

Bedtime has moved up to 7:00ish and this little man can sleep until 4:45 a.m. for a middle of the night feeding and then go right back down until 6:30 a.m. (If I went to bed when he did, can you imagine how rested I would be!) He does fuss when being put down, but within a minute (which feels like an eternity at 5:00 a.m.) he is back to sleep.

Now that the hard part is done, we are working on getting him to nap for longer stretches of time. Right now, he seems to think that 30 minutes is sufficient. Again, according to the authors of Baby Wise (one being a pediatrician), babies this age need two naps that are about 1 1/2 to 2 hours in length. Addie took two 2 hour naps until she was a year and a half. Then she moved to 1 nap that lasted from 2-3 hours.

I know he is still tired when he wakes up because he is fussy and crying, lays his head on me, and can barely keep his eyes open. Part of his issue is that he seems to always have his dirty diapers during nap time! I have to get him out of bed to change him and that doesn't help when trying to get him to go back to sleep.

But at least the hard part is done. And we are so thrilled about that!