Sleep training

I never thought I would ever have a post on this, but miracles do happen!!

Since birth, Kav needed to be rocked to sleep. It used to take real long before, but as he grew older, it will take anywhere from 5 - 20 minutes of rocking and walking around for him to sleep. Of course, there are always bad days when he needed an hour to doze off.

Whatever research I did on getting a baby to sleep on their own, involved Crying It Out or popularly called CIO. I did try it a couple of times and that didn't work for us. Kav can cry and cry and we couldn't take it past 10 minutes. So I always thought let me keep doing what works.

And then, last week (at 9 months and 3 weeks), I left him in the crib to get something done. I went back into the room after some 15 minutes and found him FAST ASLEEP. I pinched myself a million times!! Its' the first time since his birth that he has slept without assistance. So that encouraged me to try some sleep training.

The next day for his naps, I left him in the crib and left the room. The first time, he cried for like 2 mins and then slept. But after that, I met with failure. He would cry as soon as I left the room.

So I decided to stay in the room and see what happens. I never tried that before because I thought it would make him more mad seeing me right there and still not helping him to sleep. Anyways, I put him in the crib, then went to my bed and pretended to sleep. He made whimpering noises and walked around the crib trying to get my attention. But I never touched him once. I sometimes shushed him and said 'No crying baby. Sleep'. And that's exactly what happened!! He just needed a blanket to soothe himself. Took anywhere from 15 - 40 minutes the first few times.

After 2 days, I started to leave the room after he settled down. He cried once as I was leaving, but that stopped soon. This technique worked for his night sleep as well, which totally surprised me. We are now in the 5th day and he goes to sleep within 5 - 10 minutes of his head hitting the mattress.

It did take some patience but the results are more than worth it. It has helped him to go back to sleep if he gets up after some noise or other disturbances as well. But if he has any night wakings, I do pick him up and console him though.

Kav entered his 11th month yesterday. Time to start birthday planning. Am so excited about it!!