This is the day

Well, this is the day. (No, I'm not referring to the song/bible verse, or St Patrick's Day, or my Mum-in-law's birthday.) Tonight I am starting sleep training with Daniel. Conveniently, Nathan is out tonight at a dinner/Hebrew translation party. However - and I see this as a small piece of God's grace, not coincidence - Nathan also felt awake and energetic enough to get up at 5.30am this morning when it was clear that Daniel thought it was 'morning time', and let me sleep in until 8am.

We've been talking about sleep training for a week or two, and thought we'd put it off until school was out. But last night, Daniel went to sleep at 7.15, and woke at 8, 11, 12.40, 2.20, 3.45, and of course 5.30. And, as of the last few days, he won't go back to sleep without nursing :-S We thought it might be because of teething, but he is not grumpy during the day, actually he is pretty cheery.

So, as they say, enough is enough!

Sleep training has many faces, but our plan is to do bedtime routine (dinner, bath, quiet play, story, short nursing time, song, bed), put him in his crib awake while confidently and calmly talking to him for 30secs or so, and leave the room. Daniel will cry, sit up, stand up, cry, chew on the crib rail, scream, etc. I will come back at lengthening intervals to let him know that I am still around, but not to comfort him. Books I've read say this could take 45 minutes the first night. I'm reckoning on an hour myself. And the 2nd night is supposed to be worse (the baby thinks the first night was a fluke).

Maybe you didn't really want to know all the details - but I didn't want anyone to think I was just going to leave him in the room to cry all night.

So I'm off to visit the neighbours today, to let them know what's happening. If anyone has ideas on what to do to distract myself from Daniel's crying, I'd love to hear them. So far I've thought of reading a book (maybe Cold Tangerines has a chapter on sleep?), playing computer games, and maybe ringing my mum. Smiles, humour and general encouragement are always welcome =)