One of the early struggles we had to overcome is sleep training. Leah was around 2 1/2 at the time and it was one of our goals as parents that we had set with Leah’s behavioral therapist on what we wanted to accomplish before Leah started preschool when she turned 3. When Leah’s was younger, she would fall asleep in our bed and then I would quietly move her to her crib. Leah started to become dependent on that and therefore would never fall asleep by herself and especially not in her crib.
We asked Leah’s therapist how can we do this successfully and she gave us a solid proof plan on just putting Leah into her crib in our room shutting the door, and no matter how hard Leah started to cry and if she got out of her crib we were instructed to not make eye contact with her and or any say anything but just to place her back into the crib and close the door. We were told that it could happen multiple times, but we had to hold strong and to keep doing this.
So we set a date, and I can tell you that we failed miserably on the first night that Leah ended up in a hamper and I went into the room after 4 minutes and grabbed Leah! So, Alex emailed Leah’s therapist and told her that yes indeed we failed miserably, and this was harder than what we expected.
Her response to us was a supportive, she told us that that we can do this, but the more times we try to leave her in her crib and then take her out the moment she gets upset, the harder it will be for her. She told us to stop for the time being until she was able to come and support us. So, we waited for a month came up with a plan on eliminating naps, and once we started this process there was no going back so the first 3 nights Leah’s therapist drove over in the evening hours to support us and help provide us with input on how to carry out our plan. By the 3rd night we finally were successful at putting Leah to bed, but our instructions were if she were to wake up at night, we were to just ignore her so she can learn how to put her back to sleep herself.
Our next step was getting Leah into her own room into a toddler bed, so yes, we had the same amount of coaching and set a date, when Leah’s officially moved out of our room and into hers within a month of us getting her adapted to sleep training. Leah did not nearly have the same reaction as she did when she was in our room. Leah knew once she was in her bed she did not get up. So in the mornings she would sit in her room until one of us walked into her room then to tell her she could get up.
But all good things eventually come to a end right!! Now Leah wants to be more independent, and she will wake up throughout the early mornings and I will have to walk her back into her room multiple times. I figured that most families could relate to this memory I had! Sleep training is difficult my advice is to start early and make sure you have the proper supports put in place!
