Eleven Months and a highly effective new sleep technique

Our boy is eleven months old today and more alert, engaging, and communicative than ever! These past two months in the new house have been challenging sleep-wise, but very productive from a developmental perspective: Delicious cruises; imitates sounds (including saying, Ahhhh, after drinking); turns pages as we read; says, Ba!, to go out; opens cabinets (without closing the door on his own head); and climbs stairs.

11 months and someone doesn't like to lie down; but at least we have cute slippers (thanks to our awesome new neighbors from whom we got three pairs of hand-me-down, in perfect condition, shoes!)

But sleep has been a nightmare (pun intended). When we moved into the new house, we expected there would be some adjustment. To make it even more challenging, baby boy was teething and very uncomfortable. It wasn't the time to reinstitute any sort of sleep training. Plus, I didn't think I could go back to the Baby Sleep Solution technique that was so effective (when we trained him at the age of three months), because we screwed up a couple of the elements, primary of which was the rocking him to sleep rather than putting him down.

Sporadically, we'd be disciplined enough, as I mentioned in last month's post, to put him in his crib half awake to fall asleep on his own. And that worked off and on. Very unreliably. Unfortunately, because of the teething and then a head cold, he was getting up a couple times a night. And we, being really tired and exhausted, would just bring him in to bed with us. For two months we did this--creating lots of bad habits and taking the path of least resistance. We weren't really getting productive sleep. It was alway interrupted and--oh yeah--have you ever slept in a bed with an agitated baby? Not fun. I'd have to sleep with him in the crook of my arm. Not comfortable.

Often times during these nocturnal fits, we'd run into his room at the first scream, to find him standing, sobbing hysterically. And that was the problem: we ran to his aid immediately. We effectively trained him to call on us, and was dependent on us to soothe him to sleep. We had to change this behavior in ourselves and restructure the conditioning with Delicious.

Sick of surviving on three hours of sleep a night, we knew we had to do something. I've come to realize that babies change, and what works at one point, may not work at another. I avoided Ferberizing and the Cry It Out (CIO) method when Delicious was a young infant because I wanted a gentler technique for sleep training. And the Baby Sleep Solution program of progressively transitioning feeding to exclusive day feeding and eliminating night feedings (along with other behavioral conditioning, including association of a routine with bedtime) worked like a charm for six months. But our more alert, older baby needed something more.

NOTE: I am not necessarily advocating the following technique (and would not advocate it for a young baby). I'm not an expert or professional in child development, and this is just a description of what I did, and what worked for us. Use good judgment and pay attention to your child's cues if you try this.

I was familiar with the Cry-It-Out method of Ferber. It's basically letting the baby cry for progressively longer periods until he falls asleep. The key is to put him into bed half awake and NOT pick him up when you come in to soothe him. So how it practically works is 1) you have a night time routine (ours includes book, bath, and bottle), 2) you put the baby into the crib half awake, 3) you pat his back gently to ease him into the transition from your arms to the bed, 4) you leave the room. He may cry. Let him cry for a short interval (say five minutes) before you go in to pat him on the back, shoosh, or do other soothing gestures. Stay for only one minute then leave the room again, this time for a little longer, say eight minutes, before you go in and repeat the soothing for one minute and then leave. Next time, let him cry for a little longer, say 11 minutes and so on. Eventually he will fall asleep and the next consecutive nights, he may take less time to fall asleep. They say that it can take about a week of this and quite an investment of time and patience per night, but the reward is great for both parent and baby. Babies thrive when they get enough sleep, which effects their mood, development and overall health.

Well, we did this method a tad differently. Last week Friday, we did everything as we previously had: rocking him to sleep, putting him into the crib totally asleep. And he, as he typically would these two months, woke up a couple hours later crying loudly. This time, we did not rush to pick him up to soothe him. In fact, we didn't do the progressive method of CIO. We let him cry for 30 minutes before he fell asleep on his own. A few hours later, at 4 in the morning, when, again, he'd typically wake up in tears (btw, the hours between 4-6 are when babies have the lightest sleep), we, again, let him cry until he fell asleep. This time, it was only 10 minutes.

Unbeknownst to us, this method is called Extinction (meaning extinction or elimination of the behavior of crying). It is a more emotionally demanding technique than the Ferber progressive technique. But it is more efficient. On the second night, I was more cognizant about putting Delicious into his crib (after his night time routine) half asleep. We also pushed his bed time back an hour, so he was definitely more sleepy when he went down, and was really yielding. I stood over his crib with him and patted him on the back for quite a while. He didn't cry, and was really ready to sleep. I left the room. He started crying. He cried for six minutes and fell asleep. He woke up once that night for less than a minute, cried, and fell asleep again. On the third night, I did the same thing. He cried as I left the room...but for exactly one minute before he fell asleep. On the fourth night, I put him down as I had done the few nights before, after the sleep routine, sticking with the later 8 o'clock hour, and having him be half awake. He was content in laying in his crib...even as I left the room. He did not cry. He woke up the next morning and sat in his crib and chattered to himself, as he waited for us to come get him. I was SHOCKED. One morning we found him standing quietly in his crib with his pacifier that he put in his own mouth. It's really incredible. So after five days of sleep training (which was effective after the first night), we are back on track with sleep and are incredibly happy!

So where did I learn this? I just read things in my Google search, but apparently, you can get it in the book that Jenny at GeekInHeels used, called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (thanks, Eileen for identifying the name and book for the Extinction method).

For naps during the day, it's not as smooth. But my mom watches him during the day, and I think she naps with him, which is fine. This morning, the first of the naps that I've been present for since really training him, he just wasn't falling asleep after crying.  I realized he was still hungry after his four ounce bottle and wanted more milk. So I gave him more and then did the progressive Ferber thing and he fell asleep after the ten minute interval. He's been asleep for over an hour now, as I write this.

Again, I'll underscore that you have to be alert to your child's needs and trust your instincts. For corn sake, don't do this when he's sick, adjusting to a new environment, teething, or otherwise in extra-normal discomfort. At nine months, Delicious was going through sleep regression, and that would have been the best time to apply the technique, but given the teething, the new house, then the cold, we chose to wait. This is a challenging technique and may not be right for you, your child, or the point in time. You may want to wait until the baby is older or when you desperately need sleep. Good luck!