Jet-lag + Sleep Training + a Twin Bed = A Very Tired Family, Part Two
This is the follow up to this post. We're still really tired here at the Bates house. Last night (or should I say this morning) Sky was awake off and on from 2:30am until we called it a night at 5:30am and the two nights before that were just as bad. We had previously been trying the sleep training method recommended by a friend where you keep putting the child back in bed, over and over, until they stay there and sleep. It worked on the first night. Sky was only up for about 20 minutes and D and I thought, "Yay, this is going to work!". The next two nights were awful. Sky has lost her ability to sleep through the night and every time she would cry herself to sleep in her bed, she would wake up 10 minutes later and we'd have to do it all again. It really wasn't working.
So we tried something new last night. The heart of the problem is that Sky wants to be with us and doesn't understand why she can't, so she doesn't stay in bed. Last night I was able to put her to sleep just fine in her big girl bed, simply by sitting in the rocker beside her. No touching, no talking, just keeping her company (until last night, we'd been rocking her to sleep). She slept soundly until 2:30, at which point she started crying and got out of bed to come find us, so we implemented our new plan: one of us sat with her again until she fell asleep. If she got out of bed, we left the room until she got back in bed. Sounds like a great plan, right? Reward good behavior, but reward on our terms. Except that every time she fell asleep, she'd wake up 10 minutes later, start crying and come to our room. Over and over and over. To have one of us sleep in her rocker isn't a solution to the problem so we went back to the drawing board.
A lot of the resources I found on the internet said that if your child won't stay in bed and that if you're having the kinds of problems we are, that your child probably isn't ready for this kind of transition. And I completely agree- Sky isn't ready to move to a bed yet, but since she can climb out of her crib, just moving her back into it isn't a solution. We need a way to climb two mountains (the big-girl bed transition and sleep training) at once and after some thinking and discussion, we're going to try something new again tonight.
We're going to start her out sleeping in her bed since that worked so well last night. We will use our normal bedtime routine and one of us will sit in the rocker next to her bed until she falls asleep. If at any point she gets out of her bed, she will go right into her pack and play. Because the sides are higher and made of mesh, hopefully she won't be able to climb out (please, please don't let her be able to climb out!) and then we'll go to the "ferberization" sleep training that we've used before and that she's used to. Hopefully, this will be enough of a "punishment" to start keeping her in bed and the "ferberization" in the pack and play will help her start sleeping through the night again.
I'll keep you posted and feel free to offer tips or ideas that worked for you.
So we tried something new last night. The heart of the problem is that Sky wants to be with us and doesn't understand why she can't, so she doesn't stay in bed. Last night I was able to put her to sleep just fine in her big girl bed, simply by sitting in the rocker beside her. No touching, no talking, just keeping her company (until last night, we'd been rocking her to sleep). She slept soundly until 2:30, at which point she started crying and got out of bed to come find us, so we implemented our new plan: one of us sat with her again until she fell asleep. If she got out of bed, we left the room until she got back in bed. Sounds like a great plan, right? Reward good behavior, but reward on our terms. Except that every time she fell asleep, she'd wake up 10 minutes later, start crying and come to our room. Over and over and over. To have one of us sleep in her rocker isn't a solution to the problem so we went back to the drawing board.
A lot of the resources I found on the internet said that if your child won't stay in bed and that if you're having the kinds of problems we are, that your child probably isn't ready for this kind of transition. And I completely agree- Sky isn't ready to move to a bed yet, but since she can climb out of her crib, just moving her back into it isn't a solution. We need a way to climb two mountains (the big-girl bed transition and sleep training) at once and after some thinking and discussion, we're going to try something new again tonight.
We're going to start her out sleeping in her bed since that worked so well last night. We will use our normal bedtime routine and one of us will sit in the rocker next to her bed until she falls asleep. If at any point she gets out of her bed, she will go right into her pack and play. Because the sides are higher and made of mesh, hopefully she won't be able to climb out (please, please don't let her be able to climb out!) and then we'll go to the "ferberization" sleep training that we've used before and that she's used to. Hopefully, this will be enough of a "punishment" to start keeping her in bed and the "ferberization" in the pack and play will help her start sleeping through the night again.
I'll keep you posted and feel free to offer tips or ideas that worked for you.
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