Before Cole was born, I read up a lot on sleep and sleep training. The best resource I found was "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Marc Weissbluth. Julie had used it with Elsy, and I loved the results! I hoped Cole would be just like Elsy.
One idea I adopted from the book was a sleep routine. Every time I put him down to sleep, I put his sleep sack on, pick him up, and carry him to turn on his noise machine, turn off the light, shut the door, turn on the fan, and then sing him "Lord, You are More Precious Than Silver". All of these things worked together as cues to Cole that it was time to go to sleep. And sleep he did! He would often fall asleep during the song, and I would lay him down asleep and walk away from a blissfully sleeping baby. Great, right?
Great, yeah, but not if you're someone else trying to put Cole down. He needed the song! And he needed it from me...not from Grandma or Dad or anyone else. We had a problem.
So, when we got home from Thanksgiving I came up with a plan to phase out the song. I had heard that changing a baby's routine can take up to three days and you needed to just keep being consistent and push through the tough times. I braced myself for the worst. I was imagining lots of crying, missed naps, me biting my nails wondering what I should do. But, I was so pleasantly surprised.
I gradually got rid of the song by singing less, humming part of it and finally getting rid of it all together. Each time I would say the same thing, "It's time to go night, night sweetheart. I love you!" and lay him down. The first day he fussed for 10 minutes, a time or two but no all out screaming bouts. And it gradually decreased. By the end of the week, he was soothing himself to sleep with little to no noise at all (but with a lot of thumb sucking...oh my!).
I can't tell you how proud I am of him! What a joy!
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