Sleep Training

18 January 2011
Last night my son slept for 9hrs in a row. I honestly can't remember when last I had that much consecutive sleep. I've totally forgotten what 6hrs of sleep feels like. Today I'm thanking God, sleep training and a lot of hard work for my 6hrs. I am one of those mom's who hates mom's whose children just sleep through from the beginning. If my child's sleeping through continues it will be thanks to blood, sweat, tears and a lot of prayer on my part.

When I first heard about sleep training (when Josh was very small I went to a sleep talk and read Sleep Sense). I was horrified by the thought that anyone would ever let their child cry themselves to sleep. What sort of terrible parent leaves their child to cry? I remember thinking I won't ever do that. It sounds barbaric and anyway I'll never teach my child bad sleeping habits so there won't be any need to do sleep training. Well it’s not often that I admit that I was wrong but oh boy was I WRONG.


Joshua is almost 8mnths old and since around 4mnths his ability to sleep for long stretches at night has become steadily worse, instead of better. At first he was waking around 1am or 2am and then again at about 5am or 6am to feed. Then the first sleep of the night grew increasingly shorter till he was waking at 10pm then at 1 then a couple of times before 6am. So we thought he must definitely be hungry - which to our credit he actually was. So we started solids just before he was 5mnths old. We were exhausted and ready to try anything. Once we managed to get the balance between milk and solids right, so he wasn't waking at night because he hadn't got his milk quota during the day. He slept quite well for a while. But then he went back to waking between 12am and 1am and then between 4am and 6am for a feed.

One day I worked out that he was waking at night, the first time, exactly 5hrs after he had gone to sleep. That's when the warning bells sounded. I remembered the sleep lecture I attended with Dr Alison Bentley (a sleep specialist from Wits). She said that sleep for babies is like paying off credit card debt. During the day they spend, spend, spend and rack up that debt. Then at night every sleep cycle they have they pay of a portion of debt off until at some point during the night they no longer owe enough sleep for their bodies to make them pay off anymore debt, sending them back to sleep. This physiological need for sleep (which forces them down again at the top of every sleep cycle) must then be replaced by them putting themselves back to sleep. A sleep issue is caused when they wake at this point and demand something to put them back to sleep. Usually it’s something to suck or something to hold and that involves you. Once they're into this habit they believe that the object they desire actually makes them sleep. This is very dangerous because now they can't sleep (as far as they are concerned) without it. This can then get so bad that they wake completely at the top of every sleep cycle after their first waking - this is when you hear of babies waking about every hour from a certain point (usually between 11pm and 1am) in the night.

So when I realised that the waking pattern was pretty much 5hrs then 2hrs consistently I decided something had to be done before it got worse. Before he could actually stand up in his cot and we were going to have to employ the gentle lean technique Dr Bentley had talked about. So first I took Josh to the clinic to be weighed to check that he was infact growing nicely and thus getting enough food during the day. Once I knew that I decided there was definitely no reason why he needed to be fed at night other than it was nice and comforting and he was using me to get back to sleep.

So the sleep training began. I have to admit that I think that I made the decision partically because I had had enough and was desperate for a night of sleep and I could see things getting worse not better. I read up on sleep coaching in the Sleep Sense book and revised my notes from the sleep lecture. However ultimately I decided to do it - with the same end in mind - my own way by employing techniques I thought would work with my child, techniques I could handle.

We decided on a number of steps that we would put into place which we would do one at a time and which we would not compromise on.
• Step 1: Get Joshua to put himself to sleep at bedtime.
• Step 2: Do not feed him and train him to put himself back to sleep at his first waking of the night around 1am.
• Step 3: Do not feed him and train him to put himself back to sleep at his second waking of the night around 3am.

Get Joshua to put himself to sleep during the day and at bedtime. This was not too difficult because he had started throwing himself around if we tried to bounce or rock him to sleep. The bedtime sleep was hard because he cried alot but we followed the training steps (detailed below) and eventually after about a week and a half it got easier. We decided to stay with him rather than leave the room so here are the steps we followed.
• Put the baby down to sleep in a positive manner.
• Say “good night Josh”.
• Give a kiss and say “I love you”.
• Switch off the light.
• Sit beside the child where they can see you but not touch you.
• Place your hand on their body and pat if necessary.
• Talk or sing quietly and calmly say shhhhh a lot.
• Use a sleep soother and white noise.
• If your baby can sit or stand make them lie down. After all you can’t sleep if your not lying down. (Fortunately Josh can sit up on his own yet)
• DO NOT PICK YOUR BABY UP.

He screamed at first so at first we sat beside the cot and patted and spoke softly to him till he calmed down. Then we simply sat and said shhhh. We used sight (sit where baby can see you), sound and touch. If he got very upset again we patted and spoke soothingly. We also kept giving him his blankie and helping him put his dummy back.

The big deal here is don't pick the baby up. This is the hardest part because your heart breaks when they cry and scream. If you pick them up though all you're teaching them is if I scream louder for longer then I'll get picked up. Some days it took as long as 45min before he went to sleep. Absolute agony for me. I hated every moment and only through prayer did I manage to get through it when every fibre of my being was screaming “Pick up your child”.

After the first few nights we moved into the rocker which is beside the head of his cot. Sitting there he can't see us and so we simply spoke soothingly when he got upset. We discovered, purely by accident, that when we stopped talking or singing he forgot we were there and ended up just chatting to himself or playing with his feet until he fell asleep. When he was asleep we snuck out of the room. We are fortunate that he puts his blanket over his face when he goes to sleep so we can tell when he's sleeping. We used the halo light from the angel monitor to read, if he was calm, while we waited for him to fall asleep. This was a big help in staying sane during the whole process.

Once he got going to sleep on his own at bed time mostly right we moved on to doing a similar routine when he woke at 1am. Getting him to put himself back to sleep without a feed was rough. It took up to an hour at first. It was completely exhausting, emotionally and physically. We decided I would do the night duty partially because I'm able to be more with it when I wake at night and partially because (contrary to popular belief) it seems I am actually tougher when it comes to listening to Josh cry. We also wanted consistency so I did every night waking. I would get Josh back to sleep and then go back to bed get a big hug and a well done and have someone's shoulder to cry into. I can also catch up a nap during the day which Steve can't do.

It took about a week for Josh to drop that first waking and sleep through to 2 or 3am. The other thing that happened during this time (which I remembered after the fact) was something Dr Bentley also chatted about at the sleep lecture. Around day 4, when he seemed to finally be getting this putting himself to sleep thing, he back slid and fought us tooth and nail again for a day or so. It was truly disheartening and we felt like we were back to square one. But it passed and within the next day or two he dropped that 1am waking.

I waited three nights to make sure it wasn't a flook and then I took on the 3am waking. This took about 3night before he dropped it and it was much easier as he fought going back to sleep for less time. Last night when he slept through to 4am was amazing. Just when I thought I couldn't take it any more God sent a good night to give me hope that the training was actually working. Maybe one day, at some point in the not too distant future, my son will sleep through the night every night. My exhausted brain can't even fathom what that will be like but here's hoping.

Follow up.

23 January. So after I wrote this piece my son slept to 4am for two nights in a row and while I was waiting to see that he could continue this pattern, on night three, he went back to waking up. This time he woke at 11pm and at 3am and fought going down tooth and nail. He did the same thing the next night - waking at 1am and 3am and 3:30am (after I had just gotten back to bed. I decided that at this point it would be best to put him back to sleep each time he wakes because I know he can make it through. By this stage I am feeling beyond exhausted and very de-motivated. In fact I feel like I used to enjoy going to bed but now bedtime stress me out because I know I'm going to have to do sleep training again when Josh wakes.

24 January Last night Josh slept till 4:30 again so maybe we are making progress after all. I actually heard him put himself back to sleep at about 1:30am – yay.