Sleep, Glorious Sleep!

I've been afraid to blog about, thinking I may jinx it. We all know that Cam has super mind-reading powers and the minute we even THINK about his great sleep habits, he goes and changes them. But after a solid week of super sleep, I feel like it's time to celebrate our little man and document the journey we took to get to this point.

Last week Cam had his 4 month check up with his pediatrician and a follow up with the GI specialist. Both doctors gave him a gold star and said he looked perfect (we already knew that). They also both encouraged us to begin sleep training this bugger because he was big enough, healthy enough and his reflux is under control. Rick and I were eager to start that weekend because we were both exhausted and had had enough of waking up every hour for the past four months.

So, I did my research, talked to my friends asked my questions and Rick and I drew up a plan of how we were going to teach Cam to put himself to sleep and stay asleep. Our goal was NOT to eliminate a night feeding because he really hasn't been waking up all the time to eat. He's been waking up because he doesn't know how to get back to sleep on his own. For the past four months he had been relying on us to rock, bounce, shhhhh, and hold him to sleep. Rick and I formed a plan on Thursday night, and all day Friday I kept looking at my little muffin thinking, "poor baby has NO idea what's about to hit him tonight." I felt sad for him knowing that his life as he knew it was about to change, but I was anxious to get started because all I wanted was a decent night's sleep.

So, Friday night begins and it was horrendous. The kid cried almost the entire night and just could not get comfortable in the crib. Our doctor told us we needed to be consistent and do the training with naps as well, so by Saturday night, he was exhausted and cried for 8 minutes before falling asleep Saturday night. He slept all the way until 1:30 am without a peep. He had never done this before. Ever. After we fed him, he went right back to sleep. Until 6:30 am. He did the same thing the next night, and the next night and the next night. (Though his wake up times varied from 1-3 am).

Rick and I were beside ourselves with excitement. Not only was he catching on quickly at night, but his naps were also working themselves out. He maybe cries for 1-2 minutes now before "talking" to himself, rubbing his lovey against his face, sucking his thumb a bit and falling asleep. It's remarkable. Almost unbelievable.

We know we will have setbacks, as we have to still wean him from the Rock n Play that he sleeps in (an elevated cradle that has done wonders for the reflux). But as of now, he no longer uses a pacifier which we believe was the biggest issue holding him back from restful sleep.

I am so proud of him. I'm so proud of us. We did it, and the kid has been so happy all week because he's finally getting good sleep. Here's some proof:

It took us four months. Four long months, but we have reached a point where Rick and I are finally starting to see what all the doctors, friends and family were talking about when they kept saying, "it only gets better!"