Progress? Or Just A Lucky Night?

Today Danny fell asleep by himself again! It happened just a couple times before... like 2 and yesterday - but he cried on and off and complained and I had to go back to him like 3 times and try to rock him so I just thought he got tired and fell asleep. But today Danny woke up 15 minutes after I breasfed him and put him down sleepy (not asleep) into his crib. I tried to pick him up and calm him down but he would just cry in my arms which I cannot stand... after a 5 minute battle I just put him down and decided to give him 5 minutes to cry... after 3 minutes crying subsided and after 4 minutes I didn't hear anything... I even got worried he is unwell so I went to check on him. But he was perfectly fine - lying on his side and falling asleep... Amazing! I wonder if this is definite progress or just tonight...

Stuck With Sleep Training

Recently I feel that I am sort of stuck with sleep training. We are making NO progress. I just don't know how to take the next step. Danny can fall asleep by himself now but does not do it all the time. I think it's a great achievement that he knows that he can relax and fall asleep not only on the boob but while getting rocked or shhhhed or with my hand on his chest. He still prefers the breast as a means to relax and get ready for sleep. If I try to delay putting him on the boob and try to sing some lullabies for a while he gets VERY upset. I think he is afraid I won't give him his favorite pacifier... And I am afraid when he gets so upset that if I don't put him on the boob NOW he will never calm down and fall asleep :-(

So we are sort of stuck... reached a dead end... What to do next? How can I slowly teach him to calm down in any other than sucking on the breast way... I was thinking trying to withdraw earlier and earlier each day. Amd maybe then slowly we will minimize time on the boob and Danny will learn to soothe himself every time he goes to sleep. Thinking... thinking thinking...

How I Sleep Trained Danny

So here is how our sleep training adventure went up till now.

Let's remember the background. I started sleep training Danny when he just turned 4 months and would spend up to 2 hours on the breast and still not let me go, he would wake up every hour at night and again spend HOURS on the breast. During the day Danny would take only 30 minute naps... We tried to ferberize him but it was a disaster with me and Danny crying like crazy so we ended that after one evening and a day of torture. So I had to try a gentle sleep training method!
My goals were to extend Danny’s asleep time, train him to fall asleep without breastfeeding, train him to fall asleep by himself, transfer him into his crib (so that Daddy can finally come back to sleep in bed instead of the couch and Mommy can finally sleep more than an hour at a time!). I was using Pantley gentle sleep training tips and some of the things I did I just did by intuition and through listening to what my heart told me.

First I had to teach my little Danny to fall asleep without breast so I was using a slow withdrawal method - take breast away before LO falls asleep. How you do it: you put your LO on the boob as always, as soon as you feel jis sucking motion is turning into fluttering motion, you withdraw the nipple from his mouth. Danny would fight hard for it. At times we would do the withdrawal for up to 7-10 times before he let me go and sometimes I would just had to rock him to sleep. Omy, how Danny hated being rocked to sleep! Rocking was another thing I introduced because sleep experts recommend to make baby understand that he can fall asleep in different ways not only on the breast. But Danny would get so upset with me trying to rock him and kick me and make upset faces and cry... It was quite challenging to calm him down but I was very patient (mostly!) and persistent. Finally, he got the idea: let Mom's breast go and sleep; don’t sleep – get rocked, rocking means sleep too.
So after he got comfortable falling asleep without breast in the mouth and getting from time to time rocked to sleep I introduced another element. I started nursing him sitting up. I needed to get Danny used to this so that I can eliminate giving breast lying down and so that he gets used to being put down on the bed which I would have to do when transferring to the crib. After doing this for a couple weeks I moved on to the most scary step – stopping giving breast lying down. I was really scared about this step as Danny is soooo used to it. I have been doing it for 3 days and things looked more or less ok :-) then I had to abruptly stop co-sleeping (24 November) and transfer him to the crib. It went not tooo bad! Thanks to my trainign efforts!

So now I nurse Danny sitting up, he gets drowsy and I withdraw breast (he gets upset sometimes, at the beginning it was every time!), I rock him a bit and try to put him down still awake so that he gets used to falling asleep by himself. My next step is to slowly stop giving breast right before bedtime and give it just 10 minutes before, rock Danny lightly to sleep and put him down awake. The next phase would be to eliminate rocking.

My Sleep Training Rules:
Introduce one new element at a time. If it is too much of a change break it into several components. Like for example, if you need to transfer to crib, first get him used to the whole idea of being laid down…
If a new routine seems to stress baby too much, it needs to be stopped. You don’t want your baby get bad association with sleep. Resume in a week or so.
Be consistent
Don’t be afraid to give up but do it in rare cases
Be sensitive to your baby. Just try putting yourself into his place and try to understand what he is feeling and how you could help him learn
Be careful while changing one bad sleep habit not to create another!