At the twins 6 month check up, our pediatrician talked to us about sleep training. We take our kids to Dr. Weissbluth’s practice. He wrote the book called, “Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child. Although we don’t see Weissbluth himself, all his staff follow the books practices. I like that they are concerned about sleep because it reminds me to fix these problems before it gets too out of hand .

So last week Thursday, Angelica and I decided to sleep train Sam.

His night wakings, mixed with the older kids night wakings, were getting unbearable to me. Sam seemed to have regressed from waking up around 2 or 3am to having a first wake up around 12 or 1am. Then another around 4am.

As the doctor suggested, we put him in his crib completely awake. First we watched for signs he was tired. Then we created a cue, which was to read Sam a book. Finally we put him in the crib, lights out, on his tummy – the way he likes to sleep.

We braced ourselves for the worst.

The first night he cried for 9 minutes. And only the first 5 sounded tortured. Then he cried out around 1am for another 10 minutes then settled himself. I fed him the next time he woke at 5am.

The second night he cried for 30 minutes. It was really hard to listen to. But the 1am cry was only a couple of minutes. Again I was up around 4:30am to feed him.

The third night I was out for a B’nai Mitzvah, but I think I remember a report that he didn’t cry very long. He didn’t wake at night either until around 4am.

We still continue the same schedule. Most nights he still cries a bit at night, sometimes it’s more like he’s talking to himself. But he no longer wakes until 4 or 5am.

It is life changing to me. I hope it lasts!