Sleep Training

always wakes up happy

Two weekends ago, Finn and I converted his crib to a toddler bed.  (There's nothing that will slow a project down like a toddler intent on helping.)

This was at least 6 months before I'd originally thought I'd even consider making the change, but I'd been thinking about it a lot the past few weeks.  Bedtime has been taking even longer than usual lately - Finn just can't get comfortable in my lap, but really wants to be rocked to sleep.  If I put him in his crib before he was fully asleep, he'd wake up and cry like he lost his best friend, and want me to pick him up.  But an hour of rocking to sleep every night just wasn't working, either.  So it was time to change things up.  The only thing I could think of was changing him to a toddler bed.

Helping Mommy

Saturday night (a week ago) was our first night in the toddler bed, and it was a typical night.  Rock to sleep, then in the bed.  He woke up in the middle of the night and cried for me to come get him (which of course I always do).  Sunday night we had dinner with my friend Ali, and he feel asleep on the way home, as planned. Then the cold air woke him up when I got him out of the car. I rocked him for a minute, then put him in the bed, and he woke up instantly.  After an hour of rocking, he was still awake.  And so I put him in his bed and told him it was time to sleep.  He cried for a few minutes, but I was right there, sitting next to his bed, so he finally stopped crying.  He didn't fall asleep though, and would periodically ask me to rock him.  I held firm in refusing, and ended up falling asleep on the floor while waiting for him to fall asleep.  I woke up after 11:30, and he was finally asleep.  A three hour bedtime wasn't the best way to start our toddler bed experience.

Giving Mickey pre-nap kisses

First nap in the big boy bed

The second night was better.  I rocked him for 15 minutes, and then put him in the bed.  He cried for a few minutes, then turned over and fell asleep within 10 minutes.  Every night since then has been fairly similar.  He likes to ask me to lie down with him - I put my head down on the bed for a few minutes - and sometimes takes a while to actually fall asleep.  But it has cut down the the average time it takes him to fall asleep, and I can see how I can now start to gradually move away from the bed while he's falling asleep, to the point that one day I might be able to put him down and *gasp* actually leave the room.

It took him 3 nights to figure out that he didn't have to wait for me to come get him when he woke up, and another night after that to realize that he didn't have to cry about it, either.  Now I usually wake up as he comes padding into my room, and once woke up to the sound of his breathing as he stared at me over the edge of the bed.  He usually falls asleep as soon as I pick him up, and it's much easier for me to fall back to sleep since I don't have to get out of bed myself.  Friday and Saturday night he didn't come to bed with me until after 5am!

Daylight saving time definitely threw a wrench into our sleep training.  It took an hour for him to fall asleep on Sunday night, last night Nanny M rocked him to sleep (I worked late) and tonight I rocked him to sleep again, too.  I'm hoping he adjusts to the new time quickly, and we can get back on track.

I think we've finally found something that will get him on a sleep regimen we can both live with.  And while we're working on it, at least he always wakes up happy.