Thursday, December 22, 2005

Getting 'that baby' to sleep

For the last two weeks we implemented a sleep strategy that worked at getting Aidan to put himself to sleep. After rocking and nursing didn't put him back to sleep in the middle of the night, we just left him in his crib to cry, going in every 5 minutes to comfort and pat him. This is not crying it out, since we go in to reassure him. Then last week we extended the time to every 10 minutes. He's been going to sleep on his own within 15 minutes now, and most nights he sleeps through. However, recently he'll wake up and need his bippy (our word for pacifier) to go back to sleep and now we've fallen into the trap of him needing it to fall asleep. He'll wake up two or three times a night needing to be plugged back in. This is also an unacceptable sleep habit, so we're going to take away the bippy for night time sleeping and he'll only get it during the day. Last night he cried for an hour, from 4-5 AM with us comforting him unsuccessfully every ten minutes. Finally at 5 I took him to bed with me and nursed him and we all got some more sleep. Five AM is the latest we'll try to put him back to sleep on his own. Later than that I might as well just get up with him. I hope by the end of the week he'll be able to sleep without his bippy.

2 comments:

Running2Ks said...

Do you have a clip to keep it on him? Or if you want to break him of it, you can clip off the top with a scissor and it will be broken. At least that worked for a friend of mine.

Crunchy Domestic Goddess said...

Good luck w/ the sleeping. It sure isn't easy. Hope you guys find something that works for you all soon. :)