Sleep Training 101

It's that time - we are in Sleep Training mode at the Hall house.

I got inspired Saturday evening - I was feeding James Bradford and looking at facebook (what would I do without an iPhone?!) when I read one of my friend's status's about her sleep training her daughter. I thought to myself - I really need to do that. James Bradford will not sleep in his crib unless he has been rocked to sleep and a lot of times fallen asleep while I am nursing him. Which makes it almost impossible for anyone else but me to put him down for the night.

Cory was out of town, Mothers Day Out starts in a couple weeks, we really need a schedule - so I did it. I started Saturday night! It was hard - I hated hearing him cry, but once he was out, he slept great.

Last night was night 3 of sleep training. He is doing so well and every night drastically shaving minutes off of his crying time. Last night he only cried for 9 minutes! I am so thankful that Cory is on board for this sleep training adventure!

The hardest part of it all is the naps during the day. That is when he cries the longest. Luckily my mom is on board - so she is letting him "cry it out" when she keeps him. I know it will get better as the days go by and again each nap he is cutting his time down.

Hopefully we can keep up our training and he will continue to improve. We are heading to Nashville for the Christmas Holidays, so it will be harder to let him "Cry it out" as we won't want to disturb the rest of the family. But we are going to do our best to continue down the right path. - Eventually he will be able to be just put down without rocking or crying! Woohoo!

I have to say though - these past few days have been great - I have actually been waking up in my own bed - rather then the chair in the nursery and this morning I even got a shower before work! I feel so good about what we are doing for James Bradford, although it is extremely difficult to hear him cry.

Thank you for all of you that have been encouraging me. It really helps!!

(PS the above picture is of James Bradford at 7:55 Monday morning. If you can believe it - I actually had to wake him up!!!)