Well I’ll start off by saying I love sleeping with my babies. If we had a big enough bed I’d have the whole family in one bed. My oldest son has slept great from the day I brought him home. But this is not the case with my little one.

He slept in a bassinet for the first 3 months and even then he was in our bed most of the time. After the bassinet I thought we should start to get him used to the crib, which by the way, is right next to our bed. I slept a little more comfortably knowing he was safe and not going to get rolled on. The problem with this was he only seemed to sleep an hour at a time and I basically got lazy after the first or second waking I would nurse him back to sleep and not place him back in the crib.

Co sleeping works great for some babies but my son thought that lying next to me meant he was at an all you can eat buffet! Not to mention waking with a soaked diaper and pajamas! I realized it was a real problem when he hardly wanted to nurse during the day anymore.

So enough was enough. I’m not for the harsh cold turkey cry-it-out methods, but I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get him back on track. I read the book “How to Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems.” I knew it was the book for me when I read the first story and thought, “how do they know?” “Are they watching me?” It described us perfectly. I knew we were not alone and if others could do it so could we.

I followed the books advice and it made a lot of sense. I didn’t go exactly by the book, I altered a few things and found what worked best for us. Since he was used to eating so much at night we had to help him adjust very very slowly.

I like the fact that the book offers tips for a variety of sleep arrangements like, co sleeping, separate room, same room, etc. and doesn’t say one way is right or wrong. It also doesn’t say to put them to bed and let them cry it out. It explains the importance of a bed time routine and laying them down sleepy but awake. It shows a graph of short intervals to go in check on them, pat there back and comfort them so they know you have not abandoned them. Then slowly eliminate one night feeding every few days whatever you feel comfortable with. Like I said I did not follow the book exactly, I did what worked best for my baby.

Once we got through that first waking of the night he seemed to only wake one more time at 5 AM. so I decided to stop at that and go ahead and bring him to bed with us to nurse back to sleep. I love having him in bed with us just not feasting all night long. It turned out to be easier than I thought. I’m not sure it’s the right book for everyone but it definitely helped us. It took about a week but now he is sleeping great, and eating well throughout the day.