Sleep Training Day 3

Leah had a good night again last night. She slept until 1:00 a.m. had a quick feeding - down 15 minutes later - and then went until 5:50 a.m. Shafi got up with her until she started to fuss around 6:30 and I held her off from feeding her until about 6:45 a.m. But then she didn't want to sleep. She started showing tired signs about 7:20 - which seemed right - an hour and a half after she woke up. But it took me half an hour of hard work to get her down for a nap - and she was up around 8:10 a.m. - so her nap was not even 30 minutes.

She then had several fussy periods during the day but consistently napped for only about 30 minutes at a time - 4 times. We were at the park from 11 to 3 or so, but she was pretty fussy when we got home. I fed her and played with her for a bit. Then I swaddled her and fed her to sleep. She fell asleep pretty quickly at the breast and was out by about 4 p.m. I figured she'd sleep longer since she seemed so tired...little did I know.

Shafi got home a little before 6 and she was still sleeping. We debated waking her but decided she needed the sleep, so we went ahead and had dinner. When she was still asleep at 7 we decided she was down for the night and we'd let her be. I wasn't so sure that was the right decision, but it was a bit too late to change it. I went to bed at 8:30, afraid we'd have a rough night - and tired from our long day out and about.

She woke up about 10:30 p.m. and I let her fuss for a few minutes - she was fairly calm - before I decided she was obviously awake and hungry. I fed her and she seemed to be falling asleep, but then when she was done - after about 15 minutes - she was wide awake. Since I hadn't bathed her and she had been out and wearing sunscreen and such I decided to sponge her down a bit. I unswaddled her and undressed her and just wiped her down with a warm wash cloth. Then I changed her diaper and took her temperature just to make sure she was okay - 99.2 - close enough to normal.

By this point she was definitely wide awake but yawning a bit. So I dressed her for bed, swaddled her, and fed her again. She actually ate pretty voraciously for about 10 minutes and seemed sleepy but wasn't showing signs of falling asleep at the breast. I burped her for a couple minutes and then put her down in the crib at 11:12 p.m. She was pretty quiet for several minutes, letting out an occasional whimpering sort of sound. A couple of times she cried a little bit harder, but still a fairly calm cry - nothing hysterical. I checked on her every 10 minutes without her seeing me.

At about 11:28 - 16 minutes later - she had gone silent and I waited until 11:32 to check on her. She was moving her head slightly but seemed to be on the verge of sleep. Five minutes later I checked again just to make sure, and she was sound asleep.

So I'd call it half the time it took last night - and with considerably less crying. It's hard to be sure since our schedule and routine was so off tonight - but I'd say sleep training seems to be a success. Hopefully I didn't just jinx it - we'll see tomorrow night!

And hopefully tonight won't be too bad despite bedtime being so incredibly early. But once again, she's so cute she can pretty much get away with anything. :)