Sleep, Redux

I don’t want to jinx anything by writing it down, but since the beginning of January, sleep habits have really changed for the better at Bulldogge Manor.  Mostly.  As I think I mentioned here before, Sean and I attended a sleep training class at our local Breastfeeding Resource Center, and it was both informative and interesting.  The class was on Tuesday the 7th, and the teacher recommended that sleep training start on a Thursday (basically so that you are tired on a Friday, but then are hopefully nearing the end by the following Monday), and since we wanted to get our sleep training plan hashed out, we waited until the 16^th to begin.  Well either Owen knew something was up, or we happened to catch him right at the time he was ready to sleep better anyway, because in the nine days in between the class and when the training officially started, Owen basically sleep trained himself.

He stopped wanting to be in our bed, and after each nursing session would want to get back in his crib.  He also woke up less in general, too.  So on the first day of sleep training he woke up and cried from 10:45 – 12:15, with us going in as we were supposed to, first every 5, then 10, then 15 then 20 minutes and doing nothing but giving him an empathetic pat on the back and some kind words (which enraged him).  Then at 12:15 he went to sleep and slept until 5:30.  He then proceeded to basically sleep from 7:15 – 5:15 every day since.

We have had a few interruptions—once caused by the cold he had, and then the second time by our loss of electricity and ensuing freezing night plus a night in a hotel – but in general he always seems happy to return to sleeping in his own crib.  Every once in a while he’ll awake at 3, say, and cry, and one of us will go in and pick him up and give him some comfort, and after a few minutes he will dive back into the crib.  So at the moment, dare I say, his sleep is good.

Of course, it would be nice if he could sleep into the sixes instead of the fives, especially when he wakes up at 5:05.  But still!  After 18 months of waking up every two hours with him, and then the last six months of having at least once per night of him being up for an hour not being able to fall back asleep, this seems like a luxury.  I’m basically sleeping 7 hours in a row!  It is quite divine.

At the moment Owen is going through a short nap phase of only 45 minutes or so.  But really, who cares?!  He is sleeping well through the night.

I’m wondering though if one can sleep train a bulldogge.  Now that Owen is gone from my side of the bed, Dorothy has joined me there and when she sleeps, she is definitely a Velcro dog to the extreme.  I will often wake up and not be sure which limbs are mine and which are Dorothy’s, and really, there IS such a thing as too much togetherness.  Not to mention her loud snoring.

Dorothy thinking, I finally got my place back.