Omg, I want to pull my hair out! Okay I just had to let that out. Here is the story. When Ryden was a newborn he slept pretty good, only waking once in the night. He always slept in the car and stroller and stayed asleep, there were some annoyances but no real issues until he got older. He got harder and harder to put to sleep and then we got to a point where he would only fall asleep in the stroller or car. I would call Josh at work crying because Ryden would not sleep! He seemed fussy and tired but wouldn't sleep without the car seat. So we decided to sleep train, we even paid a professional, we thought we would never regret paying for sleep. Sure enough we were right, it was worth every penny and Ryden is still a great sleeper.

 

With Oaklyn we plan on sleep training but since we knew good sleep habits from Ryden, Oaklyn had been falling asleep for us pretty good so we weren't in a rush to sleep train. But now we are starting to get into familiar territory. Oaklyn is very different from Ryden, he does not sleep in the stroller and rarely the car and if he does he doesn't stay asleep, as soon as the car stops he wakes up. It's annoying but we work around it, just makes leaving the house with a young baby a little harder. Instead he needs to be rocked or nursed to sleep which is fine, as long as we are on the wake windows he falls asleep pretty good. But his new thing is falling asleep on us, we go to transfer him and he immediately wakes up or wakes up after 10 minutes and decides that's his nap and is awake for another hour and a half at least. Tonight I nursed him to sleep for 45 minutes, he finally pulled off so I put him down, 5 minutes later he's wide awake and he did roughly the same thing for his nap too. Now I'm back to frustration, wanting to scream and crying in Josh's arms again. I think sleep training will be at the top of the list pretty soon.

 

November 12th 2024

 

I wrote this entry about a month after a really rough night of Oaklyn not sleeping. This weekend we sleep trained him, so here is the update. Sleep training Oaklyn became a priority because his sleep was just getting so frustrating, he wasn’t sleeping long enough stretches and rocking him to sleep was getting annoying. This was my husband's last long weekend for a while so we decided to just go for it. He is almost 6 months which is pretty much the earliest you can sleep train and I think earlier is better and easier. Josh takes the lead on sleep training because we learned that it’s easier because usually mom equals food.

 

The first night was a bit of a struggle to get to sleep. Josh had to keep comforting him but eventually he fell asleep after 20 minutes which I think is pretty good for the first night. But then he woke up an hour later, he treated it like a nap. Once Josh tried to put him down again Oaklyn struggled and Josh had to rock him to sleep. I felt crushed, I felt like I had failed. The next day he fell asleep on his own in less than 10 minutes. He did this every nap, success! Now he barely even fusses when we put him down. It’s amazing. 

 

There is still one issue though, he keeps waking up after an hour to an hour and a half after he has gone to bed and then treats it like a nap, so annoying. Hopefully we stick with the schedule and he just fixes it. 

 

Sleep training is not for everyone but it’s for us. Both of our boys did great with it and it becomes so worth it the older they get plus almost anyone can put them to sleep. For me I think their sleep is the most stressful part of parenting, it is so much trial and error.