Independent Sleep After Just 3 Minutes Of Crying?

Back in late September, I got this message from Melanie. :

“I’m a solo mom, breastfeeding and cosleeping. Daughter has never been a good sleeper, always fights sleep and needs lots of support to sleep. Lately is fighting naps big time and taking an hour to fall asleep at night. Many many wakes in the night to latch or nurse. I’ve done all the things. I am frustrated, tired and feeling like a failure!

Melanie had a lot of concerns about sleep training. She was worried her daughter might feel traumatized or abandoned by sleep training. It was extremely hard for her to tolerate the sound of her 13 month old daughter crying.

Yet as a busy surgeon and no overnight support at home, she also felt like she couldn’t continue with the way things were.

Melanie decided to purchase some life coaching sessions so that we could work through some of her sleep training anxiety prior to implementing sleep training. We also messaged many times via WhatsApp -- one of the perks of working with me (unlimited daytime and evening texting -- you're never alone in sleep training!) Finally the big night rolled around. 

Imagine her surprise when on the first night, she tucked little Molly into her crib in the pitch black, wide awake, for the first time in her life, and Molly cried for a grand total of – wait for it – 3 minutes!
Melanie never even needed to do a single timed check that she had been planning on because Molly didn’t cry long enough.

Melanie messaged me about 2 hours after bedtime, “I just kind of don’t understand how she can be adapting to this huge change (different room, different bed, no mom, no milk, total darkness) so seemlessly???”

And in the morning, “Well I can’t believe this is really real life but besides 3 quick wakeups each hour to look around, there were no tears or wakeups that I saw for the rest of the night! I slept from 11-6 uninterrupted!!! She is still asleep and I’m about to wake her up at 715 am. I’m speechless!”

Molly never cried again at bedtime.

Naps, however, were a different story. She really, really struggled to lengthen naps past 30-45 minutes. We went back and forth between one and two naps and although she was young for it at 13 months, I figured she would do best with one nap a day and her mom agreed.

But Molly surprised us again! After two weeks of nap training and truly excellent night time sleep, she settled back into two naps a day, getting roughly 1.5-2 hours of daytime per day! It seemed she needed to catch up on sleep debt before she could nap to her highest ability. 

Six weeks later, here’s what her mom has to say about Molly’s sleep journey. 
“She’s very communicative these days with very clear head nods and sometimes a yes so I ask her “are you ready for a nap?” or if it’s bedtime I ask her, “ are you ready for a bath?” (start of bedtime routine). She says yes or nods her head.

We wave and say bye bye to the dogs downstairs -- it’s so cute. And she even turns on her sound machine in her bedroom and then she picks out a book and usually wants to read it twice but sometimes she’s clearly ready to sleep and for me to leave after only one reading. It’s pretty remarkable.

Seriously it’s hard to believe where we started just 6 weeks ago and where we are now. My house is so much more organized, I have time to eat, have a glass of wine, relax, watch Netflix, give my dogs some baby free attention, make a phone call - now that I have this time back it’s hard to believe I did without it for 13.5 months! Thank you!!!”

I love getting messages like Melanie’s!

I would never say that only 3 minutes of crying at night is typical for night one. But what is true is that you never know if your child will struggle to sleep independently or if they’ve been waiting impatiently for their opportunity to do so. Many babies and toddlers who are fussy and clingy in the evenings are actually just exhausted and need to be alone to sleep deeply. Consider that this might be true for your child! 

What is certainly true – in my experience with almost 500 sleep training families – is that babies, no matter how well-loved they are, are happier and healthier when they are getting the sleep their little bodies need.

When you are hesitating about sleep training your little one, try to remember this! 

PS If you have been hesitating, please schedule a free consult to get all your questions answered about sleep training and make your dreams of a well-rested family a reality.