Sleep Training and Coordinated Naps

Two months ago, I started Phase I of Tyler's "sleep training," which involved getting him to drop feedings in the middle of the night. I would lull him back to sleep whenever he woke up instead of feeding him (based on the assumption that if he was able to fall asleep again, he must not be hungry). With Ryan away all week for the Dreamforce conference and the confidence that Tyler no longer needed to be fed at night, it was the perfect time to move on to Phase II - getting Tyler to put himself back to sleep without my help the countless times he would wake up in the middle of the night...i.e., let him cry it out. So, I moved Tyler out of our room and set him up in our guest room. The first night, I put him down to sleep at 8pm. He woke up at midnight, cried (really loudly) for 40 minutes, and then silence. I didn't hear from him again until 5:30am, at which point I fed him and he fell asleep again until 7. Not bad. The second night, I put him to sleep at 7:30pm. He woke up at 8pm, cried for 15 minutes, and then I didn't hear from him again for eight hours. The third night. I put him down at 7pm. He didn't wake up until 4:30am, cried on and off for 30 minutes before I fed him at which point he fell asleep again until 8. Progress! If I can get consistent, consolidated, uninterrupted sleep from the time I put Tyler down until 5am, it's going to make a huge difference in my quality of life. Hopefully that's just around the corner. And with a little luck, if we can stretch that until 6 or 7am, we'll move Tyler into Spencer's room and the brothers will finally be roommates!


The other thing that has made a big difference in my life is that the boys have been taking coordinated afternoon naps for two months now. The silence in the house from 1-4pm is pretty fantastic. Plus, the boys are pretty darn cute when they're snoozing together. :)