How gentle sleep training helped my baby sleep through the night (and saved my sanity) -

If you’re a working mom with a baby who won’t sleep through the night, I know exactly how you feel.

It feels like a never-ending cycle; we’ve been through a long day at work, put the baby to bed, done the evening chores, and finally lay down to get some rest before doing it all again tomorrow.

Just when we’re in the middle of that sweet, hard-earned sleep, we’re jolted awake by the sound of our baby crying.

We get up and soothe them back to sleep, but then the same things happens again… and again… and again.

Before we know it, it’s time to get up for work.

Even though that’s enough to drive most of us crazy, difficulty sleeping is actually pretty common among infants.

And that whole “sleeping through the night” thing? For an infant, that generally means sleeping for at least 6 hours straight – meaning that getting 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep with a baby isn’t the normal standard.

But hey – 6 hours is better than 3 in my book. Utilizing gentle sleep training techniques got my son to ‘sleep through the night’ and gave me the much-needed rest I had been missing for months.

The benefits of sleep training

At first, I was actually against the idea of sleep training.

I felt like it wasn’t ‘natural’ and I thought it meant I had to let my son bawl his eyes out alone in the middle of the night without going to comfort him.

Sleep training seemed like more of a convenience to me than a benefit to him.

But as the weeks went on with practically no sleep and a full work schedule, the sleep deprivation won and I started looking into sleep training as a potential solution to my rapidly declining mental health.

I learned that there are many different methods and potential benefits to sleep training for both myself and my baby, which made me feel a lot less guilty about doing it. That included:

A well-rested, happier, healthier, and more alert baby
Better mental and physical health
Better performance at work
More energy for everyday responsibilities
Better mood and less irritability
Better ability to cope with stress

As a severely sleep deprived mom still working full time, that all sounded pretty great.

My experience with the Pick-Up, Put-Down method

I read through many different options for gentle sleep training, and ultimately decided to go with the pick-up, put-down method.

The pick-up, put-down method is a type of gentle sleep training where you pick your baby up to comfort them when they are crying, soothe them, and put them back down when they are still drowsy.

Putting babies down when they are drowsy but not actually asleep is a key aspect of almost any type of sleep training.

Here’s how it went.

Life before sleep training

I started doing gentle sleep training with my son when he was about 9 months old.

Before we started sleep training, I would nurse him to sleep but he would wake up constantly – upwards of five or six times a night.

At this time I was working full-time, still pumping, and trying to navigate life as a new mom – all on 4-5 hours of intermittent sleep. I was:

Frequently sick
Always stressed
Burned out at home and at work
Irritable and reactive, and
Exhausted

It wasn’t sustainable.

Weeks 1-2 of sleep training

When we first started gentle sleep training, one of the first things we did was establish a consistent bedtime routine.

We would do the same things at the same time every night to signal that bedtime was approaching.

I would snuggle with him, sing our little song, and then put him down in his crib in a completely dark room and leave.

Of course, he would start fussing and crying. When that happened, I would go back in and comfort him until he was calm, which would take about 30 minutes, sometimes more.

Once he had settled and was getting drowsy again, I would put him back down to sleep.

Putting babies down when they are drowsy is a key aspect of gentle sleep training. Waiting for him to fall asleep would only encourage his reliance on me for falling sleep.

The first 2 weeks were the hardest. There were some nights he would sense that he was being lowered into the crib and would immediately become alert again, and I would have to start all over again.

Weeks 2-4 of sleep training

After the first 2 weeks, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

He stopped protesting as much and began to lay quietly when I put him down, even though he didn’t go to sleep right away.

This was when I started to gradually reduce the time I spent holding him until I put him down in the crib.

There were times I wouldn’t take him out at all, but use gentle pressure on his back or belly at the crib side. Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn’t.

After about 4 weeks, he was able to fall asleep at least half the time with just a quick cuddle or reassuring touch, and occasionally all on his own.

After that, things kept improving and getting better over the next few months. It took about 2 months to get him fully sleep trained.

My journey wasn’t perfect, but it worked

My son (now 23 months) still wakes up once or twice during the night a couple times a week, but he’s able to go back to sleep completely on his own.

Hallelujah!

My journey with sleep training wasn’t perfect, so it probably took me longer to achieve the end result.

I wasn’t as consistent as I could have been. There were some nights I was so exhausted we would both fall asleep before I put him down.

Some nights I was just a complete softie and held him until he fell asleep on purpose, or went inside to comfort him even at the tiniest whimper.

There were a lot of nights I just didn’t have the energy to stick with it, and I would just give up sneak him into bed with me to get some rest.

Despite all that, gentle sleep training worked. It has dramatically improved my quality of life, giving me many more nights of restful sleep. I only wish I tried it sooner!

How gentle sleep training helped my baby sleep through the night (and saved my sanity)

The benefits of sleep training