Sleep. For most people with newborns, sleep is hard to come by. I was pretty lucky with Sarah since she slept pretty good through a good part of the night until she was about three months old. Then she started waking 2-4 times to eat during the night. What kept me sane through that was knowing that I would be sleep training her around five months of age. When I say “sleep training”, I mean Ferber. If you don’t know what that the Ferber method is I’ll give you a quick briefing: “The baby cries until they fall asleep on their own.” It’s not quite that simple nor as cruel as it sounds, but I don’t want to go on and on about it here when there’s a book out there to do just that if you are interested!
I am a huge believer of the Ferber method since I had several friends tell me it worked for them AND my pediatrician recommended it too. Plus this time around I already knew it had worked for Max.
Sarah turned five months in October around the same time we had guests coming to visit. We waited until the guests had come and gone so they didn’t have to deal with any daytime nap crying, and then the training began. THIS time around was different in that we were worried about Sarah waking Max with any crying she did at night. Our plan was to eventually have them share a room with all the room changing we did before Sarah was born. But we certainly couldn’t do that until Sarah was sleep trained!
You see, this whole sleep thing is like a very delicate system. Well at least that’s how I have it in my head. I don’t want ANY missteps for fear of throwing off the balance! So, we set up a crib in a room off the kitchen and waited until she’d been sleeping well through the night before we moved her into Max’s room. Which by the way only took three nights! Yes! By the third night she slept through the night!
But, when the time came to move her into Max’s room, THEN I worried again whether or not they would continue to sleep well now that they were SHARING a room. But the fear of having problems ended up being just that — fear. But, I still must say “knock on wood”. Let’s keep it going. Everyone’s all smiles after a good night’s sleep!
