My toddler, Jason, sleeps like a dream: we have a short bedtime and naptime schedule, we lay him down (very recently on a mattress on the floor), cover him up, and leave the room. 90% of the time, he sleeps at least 2 hous for naps and 11 hours at night with no further help from us. This is not luck, by any means.
Like many new parents, we struggled with how to get more sleep for our baby and ourselves. While I am happy many families have more rested lives due to the many cry-it-out methods, we wanted to find a less stressful way to teach our baby how to sleep. Cue The No Cry Sleep Solution. In this book, author Elizabeth Pantly provides a process for teaching babies to sleep on their own. She even has editions specifically for toddlers and for nap time. The information in the book was very helpful, but we didn't have a great deal of success until we stopped feeding him at night -a transition he didn't fuss about at all- around 9 months of age. The timeline is rather foggy, but by 11 months, we were all sleeping soundly most nights, and Jason knew that if he needed us at any time of the day or night, we would respond.
Enter: the second baby, Jackson. For the first 5 months, he has slept in a cosleeper attached to our bed or in our bed. Now that big brother has moved out of the crib and loves his new room, it is time to move baby to the crib. He currently naps, swaddled, in his carrier/car seat, but he is quickly outgrowing it.
First goal: napping in the crib twice a day, at least 45 minutes each time
Ultimate goal: sleeping all night in the crib, napping over an hour in the crib
I plan to write a series of posts about the process- to keep me focused on the goals, to share the progress with friends, and to see what comments are made.
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