Sleep Training... Mission: Accomplished

This is going to seem so silly to parents who began sleep training their children much sooner. But… our child can finally put himself to sleep!

I would not be surprised if many people felt like my husband and I (okay, let’s be honest, it was all me) were too attached parents for too long. But what those people don’t understand is that I genuinely did not believe that I would ever get pregnant again. It took us four years to get pregnant with our son after having a miscarriage at 6 weeks in 2009. I believed that even if I ever did get pregnant again, I would probably miscarry or have an ectopic pregnancy or something like that. Call me dismal, but I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that I was suddenly cured of my “unexplained infertility” just like that.

So, I considered my son to be my one and only child. I felt lucky, blessed, privileged, honored, grateful that I had him. I cherished him and gave him 110% from the beginning. I breastfed him until he was 17 months and 1 week old. I shared my bed with him until he was just a few weeks shy of 2 years old. And to be honest, if I hadn’t been 31 weeks pregnant, I probably would have kept bed sharing for many more years. I started sleeping in the same room with him, but in a different bed when I was 30 weeks pregnant and then a week or so later, he was doing so well that we moved him into his own room. He has done very well in his own room. And I’ll admit, he even sleeps better in his own bed- and so do I (well, for a 34-week pregnant gal).

Our son had his 2-year check-up this Tuesday and we told him about how we always pat our son’s back or lay with him until he falls asleep for his nap and bedtime. I told him that it takes 10-30 minutes for him to fall asleep for his nap and it takes, on average, an hour for him to fall asleep at bedtime. It didn’t start taking that long until I weaned him. I could nurse him right to sleep in 5-20 minutes any time before that. For a long time after weaning him, we would literally sit or lay there and pat his back for an hour or more. For the past couple of months, we would only pat his back for 5 minutes or so at night and then we would lay with him for a while and sneak out after half an hour or so once he was still awake but too sleepy to notice. The doctor stressed the importance of getting him to fall asleep on his own before the baby comes. This seemed daunting at first, but I knew we had already made a lot of progress in the last few weeks and we could do it. We started two nights ago and I would cave every time because I was too exhausted to keep putting Nicholas back in his bed. But today… he finally put himself to sleep at nap time! It took 2 hours and me putting him back in his bed half a dozen times… but he did it! And now that he has done it once, hopefully it will take less and less time each time and he will become a pro at putting himself to sleep!