STTN

STTN Part I: I’m going to structure this post into two parts because otherwise it just gets too long. Part I is below:


Yes, that’s right, you read STTN, which stands for Sleep Thru The Night. The reason I’ve titled this post that way is because my little family has been STTN off and on for the last couple of weeks. Now, this has not been without hiccups along the way, including some notable hiccups even last night and the night before that, but we are a hundred miles ahead of where we were when I last spoke of sleep.

The turning point for us…tough love. We had to do a little crying it out. (or a lot of crying it out, but generally not a lot at one time) I was so against this and I really wanted to achieve the goal of generally good sleep without leaving my little miracle baby in his crib alone in the dark with a tear stained face. In the end, I think those couple of days of “torture” are giving him the ability to sleep on his own which allows him to rest so much more effectively. I read “The No Cry Sleep Solution” and multiple other articles/books that advocated a more “gentle, nurturing” approach. I don’t doubt those tips will help and I think for many babies that’s probably all that has to happen. My baby was either too far gone with his bad habits or he has an exceptionally hard time with sleep that puts him in a different class.

So here is what we did. I must have read 4-5 sleep books, but realized I was only further confusing myself with each additional book. Initially I thought the best route was to pick one book and stick to it, but I actually combined advice from two main books and I added a little of my own instinct in there for good measure.

Step 1: Before I let him cry for one second, we did a few things to lay the groundwork.

1. We developed a bedtime routine and a consistent bedtime and we stuck with it.

2. I stopped middle of the night feedings (it has been clear for several months that he’s not actually hungry when he wakes up, he just wanted comfort, and nursing is very comforting). I would still comfort him, rock him, bounce him etc back to sleep, but I wouldn’t use a bottle. I suppose if I could not comfort him any other way, I might have concluded he was hungry, particularly if it had been many hours since his last feeding, but this didn’t happen, so we just went with middle of the night comforting.

3. I made sure his bedtime was early enough. I settled on 7:30pm, but that is flexible by about 15 minutes either direction.

4. I strived to make sure his naps were appropriate in length and that his awake time was not too long.


This part seems like it might have given us some improvement all on its own, but not for our little anti-sleeper. I readied myself to have him CIO…See Part II for how that went. (hopefully I'll have that posted soon.