Elijah was a very bad sleeper. We used to rock him in the bathroom with the fan on to make him fall asleep. And he wakes up almost every 2 hours at night. Then I would nurse him back to sleep. It got better after I weaned him at 12 months, but he still gets up twice or three times at night for no reason. He’s a lot better now, almost 18 months old. I put both Naomi and Elijah down to sleep at the same time between 8 to 9pm. I could just sit on the bed, keep putting Elijah back down because he keep rolling around and sitting up. After maybe 20 minutes, he can fall asleep on his own with his pacifier. Most of the time, he still wakes up once around 5am, but I can just give him back his pacifier or hold him for a bit.
After I read the “No-Cry Sleep” book, I realize I’ve been kind of doing what the author said. So I’m on the right track, taking tiny steps to train Elijah to sleep on his own without going the cry-it-out route. Basically babies make sleep associations, in that she associates certain things with falling asleep and believes she needs these things to fall asleep. During light sleep and brief awakening cycles, if those things were not present, then babies were fully awake. The author’s solution basically is taking tiny step to help the baby make new associations with sleep. This method takes weeks, maybe months to complete because you are moving very slowly to change a habit.
There’s a section called ‘Helping your baby fall back to sleep on his own while you continue to breastfeed and co-sleep.’ I wish I read that sooner, I was so tired from sleep deprivation. My next step would be to wean Elijah from his pacifier! And then we’ll see if both Naomi and Elijah can sleep on their own.
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