Our sleep training journey

Baby sleep. Who knew it could be so hard? Maybe I was naive, but I definitely was not prepared for how complicated two very simple things, eating and sleeping, could be for a baby. When it comes to sleep, there is just SO. MUCH. information out there. Everyone seems to have an opinion on how to do things “right,” and it can all feel like a lot.

Right off the bat, the one thing I was committed to was safe sleep. We bought the Halo BassiNest using gift cards from our baby shower so that baby Ari could sleep in the room with us safely. From the time we brought her home at one month old, until she was about four months old, this is where she slept. Once she started rolling, we transitioned her into a mini pack n’ play, but kept her in our room.

Although all the research we read said it was fine to start sleep training at four months old, we waited until six for a couple of reasons. One, we wanted her to stay in our room for six months and it is harder to sleep train when baby is sleeping right next to you in the same room. Two, she was born a month early at 36 weeks and we wanted to be sure she was developmentally ready.

The first time: 6 months

In November 2021, when Ari was five months old, we visited my best friend in Orlando. Her son was around 10 months then, and we marveled at his schedule and sleep. We were eager to learn what they had done in terms of sleep training. We knew we wanted to start soon, but we really weren’t sure what path to take. They used Ferber, which was a method I had read a lot about, and they told us that there were a few hard nights, but overall it was fast and completely worth it for their baby.

Feeling a new sense of confidence, we began the process of sleep training over the winter break in December. We used what I guess I will call a “modified Ferber” method. Although the traditional Ferber method, which you can read a good explanation of here, says to put the baby in their crib “drowsy but awake,” I kept on rocking her to sleep. She would usually fall asleep in 10-15 minutes, then I would lay her in her crib. If she woke up crying, we did timed check-ins. Again, traditional Ferber has these check-ins become long intervals eventually, but we found that five minutes was really the max we would let her cry, and she never needed more than two check ins. I was honestly impressed with her and how quickly it worked. In about a week or so, she was sleeping in her crib through the whole night from about 6:30/7pm to 5:50/6am.

The second time: 9 months

In the middle of February when Ari was eight months old, she ended up being hospitalized for four days. For obvious reasons, all sleep training went out the window. The first night in the hospital, I just held her the entire time. I did manage to get her to sleep a few hours in the crib during the next few nights, but they kept waking us up for check-ins and meds, so sleep was hard and she napped on me a ton.

When we got home, we expected to have to sleep train again, but what we did not expect was for things to be so different this time around. Ari no longer responded to Ferber. In fact, the check-ins just seemed to piss her off more and her crying was intense. I will fully admit that after that hospital stay, I think my husband and I both had (probably still have) a bit of PTSD when it came to her crying. So sleep became this really difficult thing where she would wake up multiple times a night and refused to be settled until I rocked her back to sleep.

After a couple of weeks of this, I was desperate to get back to some sense of normalcy. She was miserable and we were miserable; something needed to change. In therapy, I let it all out to my therapist, who fortunately for me, is also a former NICU nurse of many years. She leveled with me. She told me that we needed to change our methods. In simple terms, Ari was just not the same baby at nine months as she was at six. Now, she was much more aware of what was going on, and that her crying now was more about getting what she wanted. She also helped me realize that I was not causing my baby trauma or undue distress by letting her cry. There is a difference between ignoring a child’s genuine needs and teaching them to sleep independently. It made sense to me. I mean, they can’t talk after all, so the only way she could communicate was to cry. She couldn’t say no or throw a temper tantrum the way a toddler would, so I had to meet her where she was.

So we made some big changes that finally led to some big results. One, we no longer let her fall asleep while she was having her last bottle and we no longer rocked her to sleep. Two, we developed a strong bedtime routine where we have a bath or watch a short little video (like a 10 min Super Simple Songs), get into PJs, have our final bottle, get into a sleep sack, read a book, give cuddles and kisses, and then lay her down in her crib awake. Three, we also continue to use her Hatch white noise set to rain sounds, and play a sleep playlist we made for her through her Echo Dot that lasts about an hour. And four, we stopped the check-ins.

I won’t sugarcoat things here, this time around I doubted myself, a ton. Two nights she cried for like 20-25 minutes and it broke our hearts. We watched her on the monitor, knots in our stomachs, praying what we were doing was right. But on night three, she didn’t cry. She took 30 minutes to fall asleep and to figure out how on earth to lay back down comfortably (actually she didn’t and fell asleep sitting up and I went back in and laid her down, but I digress), but she didn’t cry.

After that night, it took about another week for her to truly learn how to put herself to sleep (and how to lay back down after she sits up, so hard!). Now, we do our routine and when I leave the room, she doesn’t even sit up anymore, she just rolls over and goes to bed.

I think what all of this has taught me is that it is important to remember that babies are literally growing and changing at a crazy rapid rate during their first few years of life. Things change from month to month- hell, even week to week. Making adjustments is so normal and what worked one month might not work the next. Now I know that this sleep journey isn’t static and that we will keep having to adjust as she grows. I’m also proud of myself for asking for outside help when I needed it. Although my husband, Dane, is absolutely wonderful, we are both first time parents and sometimes you just need a little help along the way.

Oh, and I have not used them, but one of my friends with three beautiful daughters swears by Moms on Call for help with sleep training. If you do not have someone in your life that can help and you are struggling with baby sleep, that would be my recommendation. There is honestly a ton of info on sleep out there for free, so you really don’t need to pay any of those fancy sleep experts you see all over Instagram unless you want to. And if you do want to pay one, which is totally valid, I would caution you to be careful of whose advice you are taking and make sure you are up to date on current safe sleep practices. Several well known, popular “experts,” such as Taking Cara Babies, promote practices that are not safe according to evidence based policies in the U.S. (and personally, I will never support Taking Cara Babies since she donates heavily to the T*ump campaign, but that is just a bonus reason I don’t personally trust her judgement).

Okay friends, that is all I got on baby sleep. If you have any questions, let me know. If I don’t know the answer, I will try to point you in the direction of a resource that does!

xx,

Camile