Sleep training … fail

Right after the babies’ one-year checkup, we decided it was time to get serious about encouraging [forcing] the babies to sleep through the night. In other words, we embarked on a program of “sleep training.” The doctor said there was no reason, developmentally or growth related, why they should still need to eat at night, so we set a goal of going at least six hours between feeds at night. 

Well, I’m happy to report that we’ve had stunning … failure. All right, to be fair, it hasn’t been a total failure. Both babies, and Colin in particular, are eating much less over night. But that hasn’t translated into them actually sleeping better or longer. They still continue to wake up repeatedly throughout the night, and more often than not, are unable to put themselves back down.

After 17 days of listening to Veronica scream for anywhere from an hour to three and a half hours (our record) in the middle of the night, I have thrown in the towel. I have tried everything from ignoring her, to picking her up to calm her before laying her back down (over and over) to rocking her to patting her … if someone has suggested it as a way to help a baby sleep, I’ve given it a shot. 

So I’m back to where we were before, nursing her back to sleep if she doesn’t go down on her own quickly. So while she may still be waking up frequently (every hour and a half last night — not one of our better nights), at least she is asleep again within 10 minutes or so (and then I can get back to sleep too).

Maybe by the time they’re three they’ll be sleeping … probably not, but I’m holding on to that hope.