Our sleep training.

Sleep is a hugely important thing to get as right as possible as early as possible. Sleep can make or break parents. Our goal was a baby that could sleep through the night in one stretch, and take a few predictable naps during the day.

The value of having a baby trained to sleep at predictable times is invaluable as a parent. The key to getting and keeping a good sleeping baby is paying attention and correcting problems before they get too severe.

I have made mistakes along the way, but mistakes are a good thing when you learn from them. If you are truly a good parent, you are paying attention and fixing things before they become catastrophes.

Our first mistake was allowing our little one to sleep on us. It’s comforting and builds a bond, and as a new dad…it’s really great to lay junior on your stomach and give him a breathing ride to sleep. We did it too often in the first few weeks (didn’t help to have almost 2 solid weeks of grandma’s playing crib either) and pretty soon the crib became unacceptable, she wanted to sleep on someone.

This one was easy to see coming, and easy to correct. If we were holding her and she fell asleep, she would immediately go into the crib (or the bassinet we set up in the living room. A few days of strict no holding the sleeping baby and it was solved.

She actually started sleeping through the night on her own, a few nights a week at first, and then more regularly we’d wake up at 7am in a panic wondering why she hadn’t make a noise all night…and we’d find her sleeping happily. We were overjoyed.

I don’t know when or why this changed, but after a few months of normal sleep, she suddenly would not go down. She would cry endlessly, only stopping when she was held. It simply got to be too much; it was costing us too much sleep.

I told my wife to let me handle the nighttime awakenings for a while, just nudge me awake and I’ll take care of her.

My solution…bore my baby to sleep. I’m not one for the cry it out method…simply because I can’t stand the sound of a baby crying, and my daughter has a set of bagpipes on her that will make your hair stand up. I couldn’t let her cry, but I couldn’t spend the rest of my life waking up every hour to calm a baby down. I bored my baby to sleep every night.

I would sit in her nursery on a chair and lean my arms and chin against the rail. I would make sure my baby could see my eyes (closed) and stay completely still. I would remain there as long as she was calm and not crying.

As soon as she started crying, I would immediately duck down and lie on the floor out of her view. I would remain on the floor until she stopped crying, or if not I would pop my head up when she slowed down a little, and then return my head to the rail asleep.

I would continue this several times, rewarding (with seeing my face) quiet time in bed, while punishing (my absence) crying in bed.

At first, I would continue this until she fell asleep, or 7-8 cycles of duck down and back up…then after ducking down, slide slowly out of her room.

At first, it worked ok…but after several nights (probably 8-10 nights) of consistent “bore her to sleep” treatment…she got the hint and would quit crying as soon as I would start playing.

We had our baby back, the one that slept 12 hours at night every night. That was about 4 months old I started the “bore her to sleep” method. It doesn’t work so well today, we’ve had to resort to different methods…but I credit this method with imprinting in my daughter that nighttime was for sleep and nothing else.

With babies, it’s important to send very simple and very clear messages. We taught her that crying in bed was not good; lying still in bed was good. Instead of rewarding her crying with attention, I punished crying in bed with lack of attention.