The No-Cry Sleep Solution, step one

I just started reading The No-Cry Sleep Solution, and thought I would blog about my progress if anyone was interested (also to help me see how things are going). I'm not really bothered by Ty's current sleeping habits, as they are pretty normal for a 3 month old, but any improvement is a good thing, right?


First of all, here is our starting point sleep log, with a mostly typical night, minus the 9pm wake up (this actually doesn't get discussed until step 3, but I wanted to have a starting point, so I logged his sleep last night):

6:15pm Bottle feed
6:34pm asleep in crib
9:03pm awake, soothe to sleep
9:12pm asleep in crib
12:54am awake, bottle feed
1:11am asleep in crib
3:23am awake (soaking wet, stripped clothes and changed diaper), bottle feed
3:33am asleep in our bed
5:05am awake, soothe to sleep
5:11am asleep in our bed
6:28am awake, bottle feed
6:39am awake for the day

Total wake ups: 4
Longest stretch of sleep: 3 hours 42 minutes
Total night time sleep: 11 hours, 15 minutes (roughly... I did easy math with this and rounded by quarter hours)

This is a GOOD night's sleep as far as quantity, but waking up 4 times isn't ideal (his usual is 2-4). This wasn't a super typical night, but it was the night I chose to log, so there we go.

Step One: Do a Safety Check

Okay, so the first part of this process is to make sure that your baby has a safe sleeping environment. The first part of this section talks about baby sleeping on his back. We've allowed Ty to sleep on his tummy since he was 4 weeks old, as he seemed much more comfortable this way. While reading this, I decided to commit to following the book as long as each step worked for my baby. This was the first challenge.

The other parts of this section talk about safe crib/cradle checking and safe co-sleeping, etc. I haven't gotten to the safe co-sleeping part yet, but I will read that part before we go to bed tonight, since we do a combination of crib sleeping and co-sleeping (mostly crib, though). Anyway, it says to make sure there are no toys (stuffed or otherwise), no blankets, tight fitting sheets, that bumpers are secure with no dangling strings and no gaps. I did all of this. It does allow for one "safe lovey", and Ty's security blanket from Aden and Anais is his lovey (he has 4 of them in rotation and he adores these things). Fortunately, it qualifies as a safe lovey. So, nap time came, and while feeding Ty his bottle (he bottle feeds until he's fallen asleep), I decided to put him down on his back when I put him in the crib.

MAJOR FAIL. He woke up after about 15 seconds, and then was grunting and flailing. I watched him, because he was still mostly asleep, and I didn't want him to wake up. He flailed until he was on his side, then he rolled himself onto his tummy (for the first time ever). I'm taking this (as well as the fact he can easily roll from belly to back and can push himself up onto his elbows) as a cue that he is ready to safely sleep on his tummy, and that this is he preferred sleeping position. Unfortunately, he woke himself up while rolling over, so I had to soothe him back to sleep and I put him on his tummy. He went to sleep an hour ago, and is still sleeping (though he is starting to stir).

So, that's that. I'll write more on this as I see fit, with a detailed night time sleep schedule every ten days.