Sleep Training our 11 Month Old Daughter – Update #2 (Nights 4, 5)

This is the second update on sleep training our 11 month old daughter. Here’s the post on days 1-3 (Update #1) and a brief recap:

Night 1: Started late around 11:30pm. TIME TO SLEEP: 30 minutes. Slept til around 7am.

Night 2: Started around 9:40pm. TIME TO SLEEP: 50 minutes. Woke up at 3:45am, took another 50 minutes to sleep again. Got up at 7:30am.

Night 3: Started around 7pm. TIME TO SLEEP: 22 minutes. Woke up at 5:30am, fell back asleep in 10 minutes. Got up at 7:30am.

Night 4: I was nervous about night 4. Most people start making progress around night 4, but I wasn’t so sure we would. Somehow, it started off great. I put her in the crib at 7:42pm. She fell asleep in 11 minutes! She woke up at 11:22pm and didn’t fall asleep for another 30 minutes. She woke up again at 2:29am. She was crying pretty hard and wouldn’t really stop, so I decided to change her diaper. Lucky I did, because she had pooped! She doesn’t usually poop during her sleep. This was maybe the second time. She usually poops as soon as she gets up, so I do find poop in her diaper when I pick her up in the morning around 7:30am. She fell back asleep in 38 minutes, but just 4 minutes after I changed her diaper. I assumed you didn’t need to change diapers through the night when sleep training. I went out and bought overnight diapers the next day to give her a little more protection. She woke up around 7:30am, just like clockwork. TOTAL TIME TO SLEEP: 11 minutes

Night 5: I put her down around 7:25pm. As usual, she screamed and cried, but after 2 minutes she was laying down and quiet. I was amazed, but it was short-lived. She got up again, and down, and up, and down. I noticed that she definitely doesn’t stand as long before she lays down anymore. I went in once after about 15 minutes to console her. She fell asleep in 23 minutes. She slept through the night! She woke up around 7am, but I picked her up around 7:20am. TOTAL TIME TO SLEEP: 23 minutes

NOTE: By TIME TO SLEEP, I’m referring to the amount of time it took to fall asleep the first time I put her down for the night.

I continue to remain hopeful that this will eventually work out. She had always fallen asleep with a pacifier before, but we are now sleep training paci-less.

Here are some things I have learned through the process so far either through experience or from other parents:

1. Sleep train without a pacifier.
2. If the crying persists too long, check the diaper. There may be poop in there.
3. Trust the process, and it should work. Keep extending the intervals each night,
4. Be consistent, even during daytime naps if you can.
5. Try to set the same bedtime each night.
6. Do a nighttime routine if you can.
7. Don’t pick up your LO so quickly in the morning.

My wife has expressed that she has been a bit more clingy during the day since we started sleep training (wanting to be held a lot). She has been like this before, so sleep training may or may not be the cause. We are also putting our son to sleep a little earlier, so we actually have some free time at night as early as 8pm! It feels so weird but yet so freeing at the same time.

I’m hoping that by the end of the first week, she will be able to put herself to sleep in less than 15 minutes each time. I hope sometime next week she won’t scream and cry anymore as we bring her to the crib. It’s been difficult so far, but I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Here is a link to Update #3 (Nights 6, 7).

Graphic: Canva / Jenny Hwang