Sleep Training - A Blessing Indeed!

I remember just two weeks back I posted on social media about reading multiple books on sleep training because we were sleep deprived. Well, it’s been almost two weeks since then and things have changed drastically for us. Ved has been sleeping longer stretches of 7-8 hours at night and independently. We put him in his crib when he is drowsy but awake; he rolls over, adjusts to his comfortable position, shuts his eyes and sleeps off. Seems unbelievable for a 6 month old baby to do this right?

Here is how-

We were co-sleeping till recently when Ved turned 5 months old. While co-sleeping, everything seemed to be going fine as I could feed him while sleeping next to him whenever needed, but eventually we realized that number of times should have reduced but was rather increasing as he knew food was always around and available. So eventually I tried to break the nursing to sleep association and walked or rocked him to sleep. Now, since a month back Ved started waking up almost every hour at night and I had to literally walk, rock, sing to him every time up for almost 15-30 mins. This was because I chose to have certain hours of gaps between the feeds, not let him use me as a pacifier even when not hungry. I put him back in his crib, to do the same again in an hour or two. If you’ve read some articles on infants sleep you’ll know how important sleep is for their growth. With what was going on with us, even if Ved was sleeping at 7:30 pm every evening and waking up at 6 am every morning – he was hardly sleeping 6-7 hours every night. And naps were even worse – he woke up to any noise or discomfort. I had to hug him and sleep some days and nights. While having dinner I could never eat it at leisure, it was always on my mind that he was going to wake up crying and that I’ll have to rush and soothe him back to sleep. Any noise around in the day bothered me so much thinking it was going to wake him up! In short I was losing my sanity. Also, Ved has always been a super happy and active baby in the day, so I knew that there wasn’t anything else wrong with him. It was just the sleep that was affected since I had introduced all the wrong associations of rocking, walking, etc. He got so used to either nursing to sleep or being rocked to sleep that if he woke up in the middle of the night and wasn’t hungry – he still needed to be either rocked to sleep or use me as a pacifier when co-sleeping. So every time he woke up he expected me to do the same because that’s only  how he knew he falls asleep.

I was reading about Sleep Training since I got pregnant and was inclined towards doing it. While reading the book Sleep Baby Sleep, I got Anish to read the book too. We always wanted to make our son independent in every possible ways. The more we read about this, and the more his sleep problems increased and our sleep decreased – we realized it was time to go for it! We had already started setting up Ved’s room – crib, baby monitor – night vision camera, white noise, and blackout curtains, all was set!

Although, I did not think I could do it myself with the ample of books we read which all had some things different. I contacted Ajita Seethepalli from KidsCentre.in who is one of the best sleep consultants in the country. We had an introduction call on which she patiently answered all my ifs and buts. After speaking to her the very first time, I had made up my mind about going ahead with her. Getting professional help to guide us all along the sleep training was the best decision ever! Ajita helped us with a customized plan specifically considering all the information we provided about Ved and his sleeping habits in the past. We started with the sleep training the very same night of our first consultation call. And since the very first night, after we experienced the miracle of our son’s ability of putting himself to sleep, he started sleeping 4-5 hours at a stretch.  When he woke up for a feed after 4 hours, I had to make sure I fed him awake and put him back into his crib awake. Now on, he was to put himself to sleep. And we couldn’t believe this small change made so much difference!

It has been precisely 12 days and Ved now sleeps 7-8 hours stretches at night. He sleeps at 7pm daily and wakes up around 2:30am for a feed. I put him awake in his crib after the feed; he rolls over and sleeps off. He wakes up around 6:30-7am every morning. With this routine, he has been sleeping 11-11.5 hours every night now! He naps every 2-2.5 hours in the day for 45-90mins.

I do not feel guilty accepting that this has been a game changer for us – we have become happier parents who are sleeping well. I still remember his cries when he woke up those night crying for me to help me soothe back to sleep. I truly believe we have blessed our son with a gift of self-soothing and sleeping independently. Today, I can ask anyone in my family to put him in his crib for sleep.

Today is when I realize, all the assumptions I made when he did not sleep well were completely untrue –

Ved is in pain due to teething thus not sleeping well - We have also experienced teething between the sleep training processes – we surely helped him with medicine for the teething. He slept for 7-8 hours on those nights too!

Ved is not a light sleeper – we have firecrackers bursting on some nights, some construction noises right above his bedroom some nights and he has tossed and turned but put himself back to sleep without any hassle.

Ved is not hungry every 1-2 hours – this happens with every mother where she doubts herself about not producing enough milk and that being the reason for night wakings, etc. Ved now sleeps 9 hours some nights. I have not weaned him off the night feeds – I feed him on demand in the day as well as the night. He wakes up when he is hungry.

It was two adults one baby and no sleep just two weeks back. And now we have two adults one baby and happy family sleeping like a baby! Thanks to Ajita Seethepalli to our rescue! :)