Sleep Training Day 1

Finally last night I had it and decided that tonight would be the night that sleep training will commence. usually Sumayah would sleep until the infamous witching hour at midnight and wake every 30 to 60 minutes only needing a pat to fall back to sleep. So basically I haven't been sleeping much! Fellow blogger Margot was my inspiration for my sleep training adventure. I used to read her blog greedily when she documented her experience so I was mentally prepared for the horrors of sleep training and was ready to take it on tonight! Of course I still made sure I picked up a copy of the baby-sleep-bible of our time...i.e. Baby Sense and read it thoroughly a few times. So according to this book if you follow the sleep training method it should take 2 to 4 days for baby to learn to fall asleep independently and sleep through the night. It also said that if you stay with your baby comforting her, but not picking her up it could take up to 20 minutes of crying before falling asleep. So let's go through the stages up to that point.
Stage 1: put her down drowsy, but awake. The room is dark and Sumayah is looking up at me bright-eyed the minute I put her in the cot. She just thinks we playing a game; until I try walking away that is! So I leave her to moan a little, but this soon turns into full on crying. I wait 2 minutes, pick her up to comfort her and put her back in her cot still drowsy, but awake.
Stage 2: she cries the minute I put her down, only this time I resist a whole 5 minutes! yay me!
Stage 3: crying and more crying, stretch it to 10 minutes
Stage 4: At around 12 minutes she possets, I pick her up and immediately she stops crying and her eyes droop, clearly she is exhausted from the crying, but as expected from this strong-willed little girl, the second I so much as lean over into the cot she cries. But I resist her another 5 minutes till I hear her posset again! All this crying is causing reflux. I pick her up, clean her arm and the blanket swiftly and immediately put her back in the cot. I am determined that this would be the 20 minute stretch that will end in sleep.
Stage 5: she's tossing and turing, still crying, but her cries are becoming less passionate. I'm watching the clock it's been 18 minutes now... Finally she just stops crying and is sleeping! I hang around in astonishement, 2 minutes later a last attempt at crying, but then she sleeps, and sleeps... 20 minutes exactly! I love you Baby Sense!

So now the plan is that everytime she wakes in the night I will follow the same sequence. The thing is this whole experience just makes me think of a line in a movie I watched ages ago. It was one of those shark atttack movies and Shakeel O'Neil's character says: "When you hold a hot pan, a second can feel like an hour, but when you're holding a hot woman, an hour can feel like a second..." Well when you are listening to your baby cry for 20 minutes, it feels like a century!

Stay tuned for an update on the rest of the night and sleep training day 2 coming soon on a blog near you!