Sleep training

I think I've already mentioned this, but when Sam was 4 months old, Jason and I decided to do sleep training with him to help him fall asleep on his own. As Matthew is almost that old, I was thinking it may be time to get him to bed at an earlier time and in his own crib. Since birth, he's pretty much slept wherever he wants, mostly in the bouncy seat while Jason or I bounce him in the evenings. Sometimes he goes to sleep at 7, sometimes 10, he's all over the place.

So sleep training involves looking for signs of tiredness, then having a consistent bedtime routine and placing the child in the crib while they're drowsy, but awake. If they cry, you're supposed to check on them every few minutes and pat them on the back and say soothing words, but not pick them up. With Sam, we'd look for signs of tiredness between 7-8 and put him to bed whenever he was "ready" and he would inevitably, get tired around 7 or 7:30, then go to bed. The early days/weeks of sleep training involved much crying and we would go in Sam's room and pat him on the back and whisper, "It's ok" and so on until he learned to fall asleep on his own. Sometimes the crying lasted around an hour, but after a week or so, he went immediately to sleep and he's been a super sleeper ever since.

However, Matthew just doesn't seem to be that predictable. I was thinking sleep training probably wouldn't work with him, because he is just so active and goes from cooing/squirming to asleep very quickly and he doesn't generally show typical signs of tiredness, like yawing, rubbing the eyes and so on. I've gotten pretty good at telling when he is tired by his fussiness but that's about the only sign he gives. 

Last night, however, I thought I'd try a bedtime routine with Matthew and see how it went. He wasn't really showing signs of tiredness, we read a few stories and he was kind of fussy, but not too much. Then we said prayers and I rocked and sang to him for awhile. No droopy eyes, no yawning, nothing. Hmmm. My methods clearly weren't helping him wind down. Frustrated, I thought I would just put him in his crib and see how it went. So I did, then I went to brush my teeth. When I was done (2 min. later as I have a timer on my toothbrush), I peeked in on him and he was pretty much out. No crying, no fussing, nothing. I was slightly less than shocked and thought I should camp outside his door for awhile to wait for the crying to ensue, but I decided to take a chance and go downstairs to watch TV with Jason. Still, no crying, no fussing. He was actually out. Wow. This child amazes me. Now it's only been one day, but I'd say we're off to a pretty good start and Jason and I may have some more time to ourselves in the evenings.