Sleep training

"Don't be frightened to try such methods as controlled crying and sleep training..." A direct quote from a very timely piece of direct mail which arrived from Pampers today - all about 8-month old babies and sleep. As it happens, I decided against buying a new cot to sort out the baby's sleep problems and my first plan was to simply sleep with him for as long as it took. Unfortunately, that didn't work either as he wouldn't sleep for longer than 2 hours at a time and was very restless from 4.00am, eventually getting up at 6.00am. So still, neither of us were getting any sleep.

It seemed my only and very last resort was the dreaded controlled crying. We eventually did this with our first son when he was 11 months old and it only took one night and he has slept from 7 til 7 almost every night since (touch wood). So I know it works, but really, really, really didn't want to have to do it again.

Having run out of choices however, three nights ago I put the baby down to sleep, put my toddler to bed and waited for the baby to wake again. When he did (at 8.07pm), I left him for 10 mins, then went to check him for 2 mins, left him for 10 mins, went to check him for 2...and after 1 hour and 5 mins of desperate screaming that pulled at every cell in my body, he went to sleep...and slept until 6.40am.

The second night I was to leave him for 20 minute intervals and after waking at 8.07 again, 2 visits to check him and 50 minutes of screaming, he settled to sleep until 6.55am.

Last night, he slept until 9.22pm (its amazing how you count the minutes when attempting this) and then cried for 18 minutes before sleeping until 6.15 this morning. I didn't even get to the checking point.

Let's hope that we get to only 10 minutes or preferrably no minutes of screaming tonight.