Baby Boot Camp

So, Ava's sleep habits have been deteriorating for about 2 months now. She started sleeping through the night at about 7 weeks old, let us get used to it, then stopped about a month and a half ago. Since then, she has been consistently waking several times a night. And unlike when she would wake several times a night as a newborn, she won't sleep for longer than 30 or 40 minutes during the day either. This means I get no naps. Both us have been very tired. And I've been cranky (and a little angry).

So we decided to work with her to get her to go to sleep by herself. This is a very important skill to have, not just because we don't want to be having to put the pacifier back in her mouth every thirty minutes when she's ten. Turns out we all wake up multiple times a night, we just don't know it. We put ourselves back to sleep without even realizing we've woken. But if Ava doesn't learn to put herself to sleep when we put her down, she won't be able to put herself back to sleep in the middle of the night either. This is why I've routinely spent two hours or so trying to put her back to sleep at 3:30 in the morning.

Anyway, we pulled out the Baby Whisperer book, and started reading about sleep. After all, we were having problems, and she had promised to solve all of them. Last night, we started "pick up, put down." Rather than let her "cry it out," we picked her up or otherwise soothed her when she cried, and put her down as soon as her need was met. No pacifiers. We did this until she fell asleep. We were prepared for all-out battle, but it only took about 20 minutes last night. She woke up twice in the night, at which point I gave her the pacifier and she drifted back to sleep.

Greedy for more, we decided to do the same with naps. She fought sleep a little more this time, because there is lots more to look at in her room during the day. After falling asleep a few times and jolting awake, she settled in for good after about an hour. For this nap, she slept 30 minutes.

The next nap, it only took 6 or 7 minutes for her to stop fussing and go to sleep. She then slept two hours uninterrupted. She hasn't done that in I don't know how long.

She went down for about an hour after making really funny noises for about 20 minutes (Daniel said it sounded like a little boy playing with cars). Then she took about 30-40 minutes to go to sleep with very minimal fussing tonight.

She's been responding pretty well to the regimen. When Daniel said, "Ava, be quiet. Go to sleep," she responded, "Yes, drill sergeant!" Hopefully she'll keep it up.