Sleep Training Pt 6 – Almost two weeks post-sleep school

We are still in “lock-down” mode – ensuring that Master Z is having all his naps in his own cot, following the routine fairly strictly:

• re-settle every 10 minutes during the day naps, 20 minutes during the night.
• he must stay in the cot for one and half to two hours for daytime naps. If he sleeps for more than one and a half hours, he can get up when he wakes, however if he sleeps for less than one and a half hours, he must stay in the cot for the full two hours, with me re-settling.
• the room must be as close to pitch-black as possible.
• I must be boring and consistent. Boring and consistent. Boring and consistent. This is my mantra currently!

The actual settling process consist of:

• Laying him down, if he’s standing or sitting. If he stands/sits back up, lay him down again. Do this three times, and if he stands/sits up a fourth time, leave the room.
• Sssshhhhh-ing him, mostly if he is grizzling a lot
• Rolling him on his side, facing away
• Tucking the sheet in tightly
• Patting him with cupped hands on his bottom and shoulder alternately, firm and fast. Count roughly to 100.
• Slowing down the patting to a medium speed and lighter pressure. Count roughly to 100.
• Resting one hand on his shoulder and continuing to pat just his bottom, slowly and gently. Count roughly to 30.
• Removing the hand from the shoulder and continuing the slow, gentle pat on his bottom. Count roughly to 20.
• Leaving the room

A key point being that once you move on to the next step of the settling process, you cannot go back to an earlier step. The counting is a bit out – I remember a reference to 100-100-50, which doesn’t match with my memory of four stages. My notes are still in the bag that I haven’t unpacked. I really should pull them out and re-read them while I’ve got any hope of deciphering their meaning and order!

He is no longer upset at being put in the cot, even for the afternoon “nap”. He settles easily at night, going down at 7pm most nights. His waking time has been varying a bit, a few mornings of 5-5:15 wake-ups, a few mornings of 5:45 – 6 wake ups. I don’t think we’ve had a blissful post-6:30 morning since the astounding 7:15 morning. I worry a bit that he’s going back to the early mornings, and I really don’t enjoy going through the re-settling process every 20 minutes. It basically means that I am awake from that time on. Funny how quickly you can get used to normal. two months ago, I would have been so excited at the idea of a 5am wake-up! But my body has adjusted quickly and claimed back it’s preferred bedtime of 9:30-10pm each night, which means I really want that extra hour and a half before 6:30.

Morning naps are going well. I’m trying to eek them out a bit later, 10am instead of 9:30am, but 10am is the absolute latest that he can go, unless he’s had one of those crazy 7:15am starts. He fairly consistently sleeps one and half hours in the morning, often self-settling after 45minutes or so.

The afternoon naps are all over the place, ranging from just two hours of “grizzling”, to 30, 40, 60 minutes of sleep and the rest of the time spent grizzling. And my favourite: three times now he has fallen asleep after my last re-settle, almost exactly at the two hour mark, and has slept so soundly that come dinnertime we’ve been unable to wake him. To prevent this being an issue, I stopped trying to eek out the timing of the afternoon nap, instead putting him down right on the three hour mark (having been up for three hours), but tonight even that didn’t work. He finally fell asleep at 4:45pm. No problem I thought. These naps tend to be just one hour so he’ll be awake in time for dinner. Nah-uh. A nice hour and half sleep, possibly more, thank you very much. I even got out my DSLR to take photos – something I wouldn’t normally do for fear of the shutter waking him up.

 

As for the benefits of the sleep, well! This week I’ve had so many people tell me that I’m looking really well. I haven’t succumbed to the bug that R currently has. I’m starting to think about photo projects again. I went out last night and for the first time wasn’t worrying the whole time that Master Z was going to have one of those random “I won’t sleep until 9pm” nights, or that R would be in re-settling him multiple times while I was out. I also wasn’t hounded by the knowledge that every minute spent out after a certain time was a minute of sleep that I wouldn’t be getting that night. Or by the worry that the night would be one of the really bad ones and that I should actually have gone to bed at 7:30, just to make sure that I got in a block of three hours sleep. I also feel a freedom with planning for future evening engagements. I don’t feel the need to spread them weeks and weeks apart, because there’s just no recovery from them.

I am no longer feeling overwhelmed by everything. I managed to buy ingredients *and* cook dinner tonight. Unheard of! Just thinking about how different I feel and how different my life is now to a month ago, and I get a flutter of excitement in my stomach.

Life is good, y’all!!!!!

And I have so much more love for my beautiful son. So much more.

For Master Z too, the sleep has been great. Quite apart from now having a much more engaged mummy, he is able to concentrate better on things. His coordination is improving rapidly, his language skills are leaping forth, he has so much more energy, he is more affectionate, more expressive.

We’re both different people. Much better people.

Ah sleep. Sleep. You do work wonders.

 

This post was brought to you by rainbows and kittens, singing angels and sleep.