Beginning our sleep training journey.

So Boston's been having trouble sleeping at night which isn't a normal thing for him, but it seems to have become normal. He was sleeping from 730 - 230, eating, then going right back to sleep until 8. Well lately that hasn't been happening and he's decided he wants to eat at 11, 2 & 5 then back up at 8. Yeah... that's not going to happen! I know he doesn't need to be waking so often because he hardly eats each time, it isn't like he is waking, taking a full feeding, then going back to sleep. Yet even though he isn't eating much, CIO (cry it out) hasn't been working. So I need to take a few other approaches. This is what my plan is at the moment, for the next few weeks.

1. Update schedule. I'm changing WT (wake time) to 7am instead of 8am, and moving bedtime back 30-45 minutes to 7pm. I'm also lengthening WT during the day to 2 hours instead of 90 minutes, and shortening naps from 2 hours to 90 minutes.

This is the new schedule I am trying out today:
7 Wake & nurse
9 - 1030 Nap
1030 Wake & nurse
1230 - 2 Nap
2 Wake & nurse
4 - 5 Nap
5 Wake & nurse
630 Bath
7 Nurse & bed

According to the Sleep/WT chart he needs to be getting 15 hours of sleep per day. Getting 5.5 hours from naps before seemed to be just too much considering that only left 9.5 hours for night-time sleep. So this new schedule incorporates 4 hours of napping during the day, leaving 11 hours for night-time sleep. Hopefully this helps!

2. Start solids. In about 3 weeks I'll be starting solids (I know I've posted some pictures of him eating, but that's not a regular thing, more of an experiment so that my husband can see him eat before he deploys). He turns 6 months on May 3rd, so around that time is when I will begin solids more regularly. I'm excited because the Farmer's Market opened up this week so I can get his vegetables fresh! I'll start off doing one meal a day after his 5pm nursing session, and over the weeks start to add in more depending on how he does with it.

3. Darken the room. There are a ton of streetlights RIGHT outside our house, which makes it hard for me to sleep. So I'm guessing that the lights coming in through his two windows around his bed make it hard/distracting for him as well. I'll be buying black-out curtains for both our rooms in the next few weeks, possible this week later on when we get paid.

4. CIO. After the new schedule is established and I see how that's working out, I'll start back on CIO. It hasn't been working lately, but I will give it another shot after I see if shorter naps helps at all with the night-waking. At first I'm going to be aiming for a 5 hour stretch, followed by 3.5 hour stretches, and will CIO if he wakes before either of those time limits. Each week I'll lengthen the first stretch if he doesn't do it on his own.

I'll update next week with how the schedule change has gone!