Sleep Update

It's time for a sleep update! I officially started this sleep "training" program:

http://drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html

I say *I* because let's face it, Jason isn't helping. Jack is in bed with me since Jason works swing. And training is in parentheses because I think of sleep training in a negative term. This program seems much more gentle to me.

Nights one through four: This is honestly not hard. Jack is used to eating and then being put down awake. This is not a change nor outside of the ordinary.

Night five (Thursday): This was the start of the second portion of the program. I was dreading this portion. The first night wasn't so horrible. Yes, the boy was up many times. At one point, he cried a little bit, but in my arms. He did catch on pretty quickly that he wasn't going to get his bottle though.
I woke up the next morning feeling optimistic and not entirely exhausted.

Night six (Friday): Ugh, this night sucked. Jack had a hard time this night for some reason. He was up a lot. And cried at one point for about 15 minutes. I did not get very good sleep at all. It was so bad that I literally felt like a zombie the next day. I still tried to go about the day like normal. We went to OMSI in the morning and I got my hair cut on Saturday evening.

Night seven and eight (Saturday and Sunday): These nights were pretty bad. But not because Jack woke up a lot. It's because Jack was/is sick and he's not able to get comfortable in bed. He woke up a lot but not for a bottle. Just to be snuggled and find a comfortable position. Lesson learned: Need to run the humidifier and give the baby some medicine before bed.

Night nine (Monday): Technically, this is the night I was supposed to start the third stage, BUT, my kiddo is sick. He is getting over a bad cold so I don't want to implement a new stage. The article talks about these types of situation and I didn't want to go backwards. As a result, we will be still on the second stage until Jack is better.

All in all? It's getting better. Jack still wakes up, but it's less frequent and he's not cranky about it. He doesn't have a bottle fro 11pm until about 6am the next morning. He's not starving. I know this because if I give him a full bottle in the morning, he only drinks about 3 ounces.

What I have mostly learned: I could have started this sooner. I now know that Jack waking up and getting a bottle was his form of comfort to go back to sleep. That's okay though. We are fixing the situation now. Apparently he didn't NEED those calories like I thought he did.

I feel slightly guilty about all this, but you know what? It was no harm to him, just to me. And I can say that I am excited to get more than about 2-3 hours of uninterrupted sleep at night. One day, that shall come!