Our "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" Experience, Part 5 - One Week Later

We've been using "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth for a week now to help get Atticus higher quality and quantity sleep.

The last five days have been...good...for the most part.

Saturday:  We spent the day/night on the boat.  Atticus took both naps at home with minimal fussing and fell asleep at night with about 8 minutes of protest.  He woke once overnight.

Sunday:  Naps were taken at home (one with no fussing!), but we spent the night on the boat.  He only fussed a couple of minutes, but it took him about 20 to fall asleep.  I heard him jabbering over the monitor.  He woke once overnight.

Monday:  Monday was a nightmare.  He didn't nap well.  It took him a long time to fall asleep, and he didn't stay asleep for long.  That night, we took some out of town family downtown on the boat for dinner.  We were eating at TGI Fridays at 8 and didn't get back to the boat until 9:15, so Atticus got down for the night super late.  Then we had to make the two hour trip home.  He was super tired and super fussy.  It seemed like he could not get comfortable.  It took him about 30 minutes to go to sleep.  He didn't cry, but he wasn't all happyhappyjoyjoy in the pack and play.  He woke twice overnight.

Tuesday: Tuesday morning was my monthly Le Leche League meeting at 10.  TEN!  You'd think these people would know that's the time my child needs to be sleeping, but whatever.  We went.  Atticus skipped his morning nap.  I thought it'd be catastrophic, but it wasn't.  He napped for 3.5 hours in the afternoon instead and went down like a champ at bedtime (less than 5 minutes of protest).

Wednesday:  Wednesday was the holy grail of sleep training.  His naps were perfect.  He fell asleep while nursing before both of them and didn't wake as I put him in his crib.  At bedtime, Michael read him a book and put him down instead of me, and he fell asleep without fussing.  ZERO minutes.  I didn't hear a peep out of him!  However, he woke up three times overnight.  I'm going to attest that to the fact that last night was our first night home after five nights on the boat.  The house is significantly quieter than the boat.  The boat air conditioner is loud, but I don't want to put white noise in Atticus' room at home because I want to teach him to sleep in whatever situation we happen to have.

His bedtime has usually fallen around 7 pm because that's when he's started showing signs of tiredness.  He usually wakes up around 7:30 am.  The night wakings have been short and uneventful.  Wake, boob, back to sleep.  He was done, and both of us were back in our beds asleep within 20 minutes (except for that time I stayed up too late reading crap on my iPhone).  He is always put down on his back in his crib, but I always find him on his belly when I go check on him.

I am very glad we are using the Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child book to help Atticus get some better sleep.  Nothing is perfect, and nothing is a guarantee, but we have had significant improvement over his previous sleeping habits.

I give the book an A, and our family collectively gives it 6 thumbs up.  (Elvira can't use her thumbs, or it'd be 8).