What Does Sleep Training Mean?

If you are a parent you have heard the phrase "sleep training." Some parents will ask "What sleep program are you using?" I always stayed away from anything with the word "sleep training" because it made me feel like I was treating my child like a computer to be programmed. That said I try never to judge parents who use these programs because every lifestyle and child is different. In fact I am writing this because our child has decided that co-sleeping = playtime. Problem? Yes!

When Lyra was born we were in a one bedroom apartment so naturally her crib was in our room and she slept in the bed with us where I could easily nurse her throughout the night when needed. At one month she was sleeping through the night without milk in the bed with us. This was fine by us as long as she was sleeping. At around 10 months she got a nasty stomach flu and stopped eating solid foods so her breast milk intake increased to all hours of the night in order to stay hydrated. After recovering from the flu and picking up solid foods again she continued to want to nurse about three times a night. I tried to slowly wean night time milk intake down but this resulted in much screaming. Then about a week before her first birthday she decided that at 1 AM mommy and daddy should get up and play! We thought maybe it was one time thing, since, some nights are better than others. On the fifth night we realized we had a problem. By then she decided she wanted to play at 9 PM, 1 AM, and 3 AM. This had to stop if we were going to survive.

One night I knew I had to do something. So, I bought an album of natural white noise and set Lyra in her crib. I sat in the rocking chair next to the crib and let her cry for 30 minutes and then she passed out. When she woke up at 5 AM I brought her into the bed and she slept for another hour. We started doing this every night and we just finished our fourth night. When she wakes up we check her diaper give her some water then sit with her until she went back the sleep. By the second night it was only taking 10 minutes to go back to sleep. 5 minutes on the third and last night. So far everyone is getting more sleep at night. We hope the trend will continue.

Cody getting sleep when he can with Lyra