sleep training

i mentioned in an earlier post that we've been trying to eliminate maki's 3am feed and in the process, we also successfully eliminated the 9pm feed.  so now maki eats at around 6:30pm, midnight and between 6-7am.  but he squirms a lot and wakes up a few times at night usually an hour before his midnight feeding and between 4-6am so it's still not uninterrupted sleep for us.  mik has been going to bed at 9pm so he can deal with the 3-7am wakings.  i try to sleep by 10:30 but most of the time i end up going to bed after the midnight feed - there's always something to do!  but last friday, we moved him from bassinet to crib, which is still in our room.  last monday, his nanny also started (nanny search will be a separate post - it was a nightmare!).  so as you can see, lots of changes with maki in the last couple of weeks.  since last saturday, he has been waking up every 30-45 min from 8pm-6am and during his naps.  it takes us about 10-15 min to rock him to sleep so if you do the math, both mik and i weren't getting much sleep.  it has been horrible and not realistic for us to keep maintaining this schedule.  so today, i contacted soho parenting (sleep experts in manhattan).  i emailed with them before about sleep training but they said they can't start until the infant is 3 months old.  but when i told them about our situation, they said they would help us.  i also called dr. kercher's office and told them about maki's schedule.  the nurse called me back and told me that basically maki is smart enough that he's figured out we would always hold him and rock him whenever he wakes up and cries... so he's going to keep doing that.  she told us to let him cry so he can put himself back to sleep.  i told her that last time i saw dr kercher, she recommended sleep training at 6 months so i wanted her to confirm with the doctor first.  the nurse called me back and cleared it with dr. kercher.  i guess it's because it's not healthy for him to keep waking up like that - he's not getting enough sleep.  we're not getting enough sleep.  no one's happy.

so tonight, we started sleep training.  after he was bottle fed (didn't want to breastfeed so we know for sure he ate enough), his clothes changed, clean diaper (mik didn't get to reading bec maki was too sleepy), we put him down in his crib, turned on the sleep sheep, put in his monkey (binky/paci), said our good nights, left the room and started the timer.  we started with 5 min first.  after about 3 min, he stopped crying for at least 15 sec so we restarted to 5 min again.  when the timer went off, we both went in, put his binky in, patted him, told him that it's time to sleep, made sure his diaper was ok and left the room.  when i was talking to maki, my voice was cracking and i wanted to cry.  he was so sweaty and looked so sad!!!  we started the timer for 5 min again and repeated.  we then changed it to 10-min intervals.  mik and i were sitting together on the couch - united we stand (or sit)!  i told mik i wanted to stay outside and he insisted we both check in on him.  after checking on him for the 4th time, we changed his diaper.  then as soon as we left the room, we didn't hear any crying.  we turned on the monitor and it wasn't pointing at him so we were getting worried.  after a few minutes of silence, mik went in and fixed the monitor.  maki was asleep!!!  it took a little less than an hour.  it was a very long hour!!!  then about 30 min later (his usual schedule), he woke up again and started crying.  we started the timer for 10 min.  i started sanitizing bottles to keep busy.  then before the timer went off, he was asleep!  my baby was probably so exhausted...  i want to go in and hug him!  we will keep at this all night and during his naps.  i'm already dreading the midnight feed...  ARGH!  i heard it takes about 2-4 days.  is it too much to hope that maki is a genius and will figure it out after tonight?!!!

here's a pic of maki with his BFF monkey (binky/paci):

"i love you monkey"