Sleep Consultant Update

We are on our 7th night of using the sleep schedule that the sleep consultant recommended to us. I'm happy to say that we are seeing some results and, although I don't know if it can be entirely contributed to the sleep consultant because we were starting to see some small improvements before we started the plan, I will say that I have been very happy so far with the consultant. The sleep plan that she sent us was a 24 page packet containing all sorts of good information from recommendations for sleep tools such as toddler clocks and sleep lights to a detailed recommendation of how to handle bed times, night wakings and naps to a day-by-day plan of how to put it all into action. And it was all very specific to Jayden and the information that I had provided to the consultant. If anything the plan has given me some peace of mind that what we were doing was the right thing even if Jayden was giving us all sorts of pushback and also helped us tweak some of the things that we were doing so we could actually start to see some progress.


The first 6 nights we have been working solely on bed times. Working on night wakings and naps will come later once we have established good bedtime habits. The main change was putting Jayden to bed earlier. This has been a little difficult because now our evening schedule looks like this:


5:00 pm     Pick up Jayden from day care
5:30          Feed Jayden dinner 
6:00 - 6:15 Head upstairs to start the bed time routine of reading books, putting on PJs and saying night-night to all his stuffed animals
6:30          Lights out
7:30          Jayden is usually asleep by this point


So now I have to make sure to start dinner before I go get Jayden from daycare so it's mostly ready to go once we get home and we had to eliminate the bath at night because there was simply not enough time. We now do the bath in the morning which has turned out quite well actually. He seems to enjoy the bath much more and we aren't near as rushed to get it in (I tried it the first night and it was a disaster - he screamed the entire time I was trying to wash him. Not fun.)


The main reason for putting him to bed earlier though was because the consultant thought it sounded like Jayden may be overtired, which can actually have an opposite effect of causing him to wake up more frequently at night. Not only have we seen some improvement of night wakings (sort of) but it really has seemed to make Jayden a happier little boy during the daytime. I am so happy that if anything he is more pleasant to be around during his awake hours since that time with him is so short during the week.


The other thing that we have changed is putting him on his bed awake, as opposed to rocking him completely asleep, and making sure that he falls asleep without our assistance, such as patting or rubbing his back. For the most part this has worked fairly well but DJ seems to have much better luck at the moment with getting him to calm down and actually go to sleep. He still seems to get pretty worked up with me and we often dealt with screaming and crying sessions before he would finally lay down on his bed for me. That is not fun and I would get frustrated and then get frustrated for getting frustrated. It's a vicious cycle but I am learning that this is a lesson in patience and parenting in general. (I could do a whole other post on what I'm learning about being parent through this sleep struggle.)


The next few nights we are adding a step to the bed time routine. Now, once we lay him down and tell him good night, we then start creating more and more distance between us and him each night. The goal is to actually put him to bed awake, leave the room, and he will fall asleep completely on his own. For a lot of parents this will seem like a no-brainer. For us, this will seem like a miracle, if it ever happens. The idea is so foreign to us that DJ had to ask me if I was serious when I was reading that part to him. So funny but I look forward to that day!


So all in all after 6 full weeks of this struggle, things are looking up. We still aren't getting a whole lot of sleep but at least Jayden is happier and we have a plan. I am hoping that by the time I go to Washington DC on a business trip (and leave Jayden with DJ for a full 6 days) at the end of March, this sleep struggle will be a memory and Jayden will be doing really well going to bed on his own, sleeping through the night and taking great naps!