Sleep Teaching: Part 2

So as I mentioned yesterday we started sleep teaching Dominick on the 10th. I will say that the weekend was the hardest for us. We take Dominick with us everywhere and when he was little it was so easy. He would sleep wherever, but now that he's more alert and active he will rarely sleep when we're out and about. We've come to the conclusion we either need to be home by his bedtime or hire a babysitter. I'm leaning more towards the be home by his bedtime because I'm a helicopter mom (but that's for another post at another time).

With that being said we were out for a while on Saturday and Friday he went to bed a whole hour later than usual (gasp!).

Friday:
Total Crying Time - 0
Total Sleep Time - 9 hours

Saturday:
Total Crying Time - 0
Total Sleep Time - 2 hours one in my arms and one in the car. 8 hours in his crib

Sunday:
Total Crying Time - less than 1 minute
Total Sleep Time - 10 hours

Monday:
Total Crying Time - 0
Total Sleep Time - 10 hours

Is there anything more perfect and pure than a baby sleeping? I think not!

I honestly think we were all ready for this. I love having my bed back and I think he likes having his own space. He is such a wiggle worm and is all over his crib, but it's his space. We don't use a sound machine or have a night light for him. I wanted to get him one, but now I'm starting to rethink it. I like not having him rely on the noise or the light. He goes to sleep and we are still able to do whatever we need to do before we go to bed whether it's picking up the house, watching tv, doing laundry (his room shares a wall with the laundry room) all without waking him because he's not used to relying on other noise/lights. I miss being able to cuddle with him and have that extra time with him, but I know it's what's best for all of us. I don't regret waiting until he was 7 months to do it either because it's been a good transition. Even though tonight will mark night 6 I still prepare for a bad night, but hope for the best. I can say that this is a huge milestone for us and I'm so proud to finally say I have an all night sleeper. You can tell that we are all much more rested and it's been a great change for us. So can I say that it's been a success? I'm not sure if it's too early to say, but I sure would like to think we are.

Some of the tips I got from other moms that really helped:
+turn the volume down on the monitor. We have a video monitor and I know that if I heard him breathe funny I would wake up. When he was crying it's so hard to not only watch him, but hear him too. I just turned it down and it really did help. We don't turn it back up when we sleep either since I can hear him without it.
+don't rush in. Wait 5 minutes, then 10, then 20 and so on. The first night was the only night that we had to do this so far and it was during the night after 15 minutes. Unless you can tell they're physically in pain, don't rush.
+stay strong and have a good support system. I know that if Ryan gave in or wasn't there to say, "Al, he's fine. Just wait", everyone telling me it would be a good thing, I for sure would have just waited longer. Brought him back to bed that first night.
+don't pick him up. I know for Dominick it would have been a total teaser. The night I went in I gently laid him back down and that was it. I didn't rock him, I didn't pick him and bounce him and he was mad, but he learned that he needed to self soothe and he's doing a great job.