Sleep Training: "The Long Goodbye"

     When it comes to teaching your baby to go to sleep on his/her own, everyone has their own opinion. Some people fully support letting the child cry it out, others are completely against crying it out, while still others don't want to use cry it out but get to a point of not know what else to do. I fully respect each parents opinion and their choice to use what they wish for their child, but David and I have our own opinions of how we deal with the issue of sleep training for our children.
     In our house, we do not want to us Cry It Out with our infants. When Carissa was a baby, she got to the point of needing to fall asleep while laying on my chest, and even then she started fighting bed time. We were struggling to get her to go to sleep without stressing out, and without having to resort to Cry It Out. I began researching other ideas, and found one that I thought sounded good ... and we decided to try it. It is called, "The Long Goodbye." It worked wonderfully! By 6-7 months we could lay her in her bed awake, tell her "night night," leave the room, and she would put herself to sleep (if she cried it was done within 30 secs of leaving the room). She is still a great sleeper to this day.
     Kathryn is starting to show signs that she is ready for sleep training, so we have decided to go ahead and begin "The Long Goodbye" with her. I have had a few people ask me about it, so I decided to write about the process and our experience with it.
     Before I begin, there are a few notes I want to make. ...

1. Each baby is different. What worked for our children, may not work exactly the same way for someone else's children. We had to follow Carissa's cues.
2. Sleep training does not happen over night. Babies need consistency for routines to stick. (If you think about athletic training in comparison, it will help you understand what it means to train a baby to put him/herself to sleep.
3. Don't worry if you have to take a step back. So many things can mess with a baby's sleep habits (ie. growth spurt, over stimulation, missed nap, teething, or even hitting a new milestone - crawling, sitting up, rolling over, etc.). If at any point, you seem to have a set back, just take a deep breath, and take one step back. Then slowly work towards taking that step forward again.

     Our first step to sleep training was starting a normal bedtime routine. Our routine looked something like this:

• 6pm - Solid foods
• 6:30 - Bath, lotion, pjs
• 7pm - Last nurse of the day (We purposely did not nurse right before bed because we did not want to start a dependency on needing to be nursed to sleep etc)
• 7:30 - Book and family cuddle time
•  8pm - Bedtime ("The Long Goodbye")

     When we put her to bed, we first "set the mood." This was a routine that remained constant: We turned off the lights in the bedroom, with the exception of the nightlight. We have a lullabies CD that we turned on. (Having the CD created a familiar sound that she got used to hearing at bedtime. It comforted her, and we were able to take the CD with us to help create that same familiar comfort when we were putting her to bed at someone else's house.) After setting the "bedtime mood" in her room, we laid her in her bed and said "night night."
     Over the next few weeks, we followed these steps:
Step 1
    When we laid her down, we stood by her crib and patted her back (she was a tummy sleeper), rubbed her face/head, spoke softly, replaced her binky, continued to lay her back down etc. We only picked her up if she became too upset. Then we would pick her up briefly, to calm to her down, and then lay her back down and start again. We stayed with her until she fell asleep. The first night took 45 minutes before she finally fell asleep. But the next day went a lot easier. We used this same method at nap times too (it helped create regular nap times), and it helped her get used to going to sleep in the crib while there was light. After that first night, it generally took her about 10-15 minutes to fall asleep.

     After she became accustomed to going to sleep with us still touching her, we moved on to the next step.

Step 2
     When we laid her down, we just stood by her crib, and would speak softly if needed. Only touching her if she really needed to be moved back to the center of the crib, or to replace a binky etc. For the most part, the idea behind this step was just to stand where she knew we were still there without touching her.

      After she became accustomed to going to sleep without being touched, we moved on.

Step 3
     When we laid her down, we sat in the rocking chair in her room, close enough that she could sense we were still there, without seeing us. We would talk to reassure her if needed.

Step 4
    When we laid her down, we stood by the door out of sight, quietly.

Step 5
     When we laid her down, we worked towards sneaking out of her room.


This whole process with Carissa took about 3-4 weeks before we could consistently lay her down, say "night night," and leave the room without her crying herself to sleep. If she cried in protest at all, it never lasted longer than a minute. (Well, at least until she got closer to 2 years old haha.)


Now, we have started with Kathryn. Last night was my first attempt. I have a feeling she will be easier and quicker than Carissa. I laid her down, and patted her back, and she was asleep in less than 5 minutes.
Today during naps, the same. Tonight, I laid her down and she immediately laid her head down and I never had to touch her! I will not hold my breath that this is permanent yet, but I think she is doing quite well with this!

My Soap Box:
I truly like this alternative much better than Cry It Out because it helps little ones slowly adjust to sleeping on their own, and slowly weening from mom and dad. This process lets them learn to put themselves to sleep while still feeling safe from parents. (At this young age, their psychological milestone they are working on is Trust. They need to know that their caregivers are going to meet their every need and not leave them feeling abandoned.) So from a psychological stand point, I prefer to help my children learn to fall asleep as independent children who have a healthy level of trust that mom and dad will take care of them if needed.
And from a physical stand point, I want my children to be able to fall asleep while they are calm and not upset. If they are crying themselves to sleep, you can hear them still catching their breath even after they fall asleep. The quality of sleep they are receiving is not as good as if they were to happily drift off to sleep peacefully.

I wish all the parents reading this the best of luck as you work towards teaching your little ones how to put themselves to sleep. If you have any questions about this method, feel free to ask! I am definitely a big fan!