Sleep Training Update

Heading out to Easter Brunch 2014

So it has been roughly 7 months since we began sleep training Sloane at 8 months. We used the Sleep Lady Method, with our own little tweaks that worked for our family.

So from her 8th month thorough her 15th month we would hold/cuddle with Sloane until she was drowsy, but not completely asleep before putting her in her bed. We now thought it was time to transition into putting Sloane down fully awake, and she would then put herself to sleep.

We didn't change our nightly routine: bath, story, prayers, cuddles with MaMa, then cuddles with PaPa, who would then put her down to sleep in her bed. The BIG change was PaPa would only cuddle/hold Sloane for 5 minutes, place her in her bed wide awake, then leave the room.

So....Sloane did AWESOME!

The first night she fussed for only 30 minutes, and we did check-ins at 10 and 15 minute intervals. For naps it was the same thing. By the second week, we had no fussing at nap-time or bedtime.

YES! Points for MaMa and PaPa!

We did have some regression, which is to be expected at the third/fourth week mark, and also due to teething. Sloane has been teething NON-STOP since she was 4 months! She already has her first set of molars.

However, with all of that being said, Sloane has REALLY done well! We are pleased with our approach to sleep training our little Sugar Foot!

Sloane is also on a new nap schedule. She only naps once a day for two hours, typically 12-2 p.m. Her bedtime is still the same; roughly 6:45 p.m., and she is normally asleep by 7:00 p.m., with a wake time between 7-7:30 a.m.

So this method worked for Team Sharp!

My advice to ALL parents is to ALWAYS do what works best for your family! Read ALL the books and then you can tweak/alter the method to suit your child.

For us, the less Sloane cries herself to sleep the BETTER!

Every child NEEDS a structured routine, as do parents. However, the key is to follow your heart and do what is best for your family to bring and maintain peace and love to your home, along with a GOOD 10-12 hours of sleep for your precious little one.

There is NOTHING but Peace, Love and continued Blessings for Team Sharp's household.

Forever I am...Sloane’s Mommy

Let the Potty Training Begin!

So it is now time to start thinking about potty training. WOW! The time has really flown by! Each new month and stage of Sloane's growth brings excitement and nostalgia all at the same time! Excitement to experience her new developments, and nostalgia in reflecting upon her growth.

Once again, all of my Mommy friends who told me the days will seem long but the months will fly by, were TRULY telling the TRUTH! Gesh! I miss that little baby girl Sloane. However, I am really enjoying and loving this little toddler Sloane as well!

So, I have purchased two potty training books for Ash and I to read: Potty Training Girls the Easy Way: A Stress-Free Guide to Helping Your Daugher Learn Quickly as well as Toilet Training in Less Than a Day.

I also purchased a book for Sloane as well Girls' Potty Time.

I know the key to potty training any child is to have patience. I pray for guidance and patience DAILY. The other key I know from my Mom, who is TRULY the "Potty Training Whisperer" is to be consistent and NEVER give up or be lazy and go back to the diapers.

I so wish she were here to aid in potty training Sloane! However, I will be having SEVERAL phone conversations with her throughout the process!

So after doing some reading and listening to my Mom who is GREAT at this, we purchased Sloane's potty when she turned 15 months. Now I take her to the bathroom with me and allow her to sit on it explaining what it is for as I would sit on the toilet as well.

Now, we have moved to putting Sloane on the potty before bath time EVERY night so she gets used to sitting on the potty with her pants off and to remove as much fear as possible. So far so good! She has used the potty several times and is AMAZED when she does! She claps for herself and says "Pee-Pee!" She also finds joy in wiping herself with the toilet paper as well! Lol!

So I would say we are doing well thus far. I think without adding any pressure to this new adventure and making it as fun as possible has definitely helped a lot!

We will begin to REALLY potty train Sloane when she turns 18 months. I know some people wait until their children are 2 years old, or when they have the language and understanding. Sloane has the language and understanding, therefore we are going to begin potty training at 18 months.

Which means moving away from our cloth diapers and into potty training underwear! Let the potty training adventures begin!

Forever I am...Sloane’s Mommy

Big Girl Tub

Well Sloane outgrew the "baby" tubs pretty quickly. Our little angel definitely has long legs like her Mommy! I wonder how tall she will actually be...

I thought I was going to be tall like my Dad, but at 15 I stopped growing. I'm hoping she is no taller then six feet, but we shall see...

So, when it was time to start bathing Sloane in a "regular" size tub, we knew we had to be cautious and safe. Children often fall in bathtubs and can have concussions because of those falls. We wanted to avoid that at all cost! So, I did some research and found these safe and cute bumpers and slip mat for Sloane's new "Big Girl" tub. She loves it of course! More space to splash and play!

We went with the Sesame Street theme for the borders

Elmo is on her bath mat :-)

Forever I am...Sloane’s Mommy

These shoes were made for Walking...

Now that Sloane is semi-walking, it is time to introduce shoes to her cute little "tootsies".

I know, I know, there are shoes made for children from birth, however, why do they need shoes when they are being held? They look cute? They are fashionable? The answer is probably "yes" to both questions, however, they are not good, nor recommended for babies precious developing little feet.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, your child wears shoes to protect their feet, and it will not help them in walking, especially if they are not flexible shoes. So instead of shoes, I always put socks on Sloane's feet. Now that she can wear shoes, I went for the flexible shoe, and what is really popular right now are cute little leather moccasins.

When I was pregnant with Sloane, we were in Sydney after our trip to Fiji in September shopping for her furniture, and we went to the Saturday markets  in The Rocks. There I saw these cute shoes and knew I HAD to have them for Sloane! They are hand made and the brand name is so CUTE: Bubby and Sole. I didn't buy any that day, but did get a card, and was really happy when I saw she had a website and would ship to Alice Springs.

Fast forward to about a year later, we were in Sydney for the Beyonce concert, and I planned on going back to The Rocks in hopes that the owner would be there with her cute little shoes. Yep! She was! So I bought 3 pair for Sloane =)

Her first time wearing them was cute and she couldn't keep her hands off of them! Now she likes putting on her little shoes and crawling/walking around the house pushing her activity walker. I mainly let her walk bare foot or with socks in the house, and I put the moccasins on for awhile so she can get used to having some type of shoe on her foot.

This post with a list of the Top 10 Shoes for New Walkers helped me as well. I would also like to get a few pair of these cute moccasins for Sloane from Happy and The Hectic, especially the metallic pair!

Her father insist that we get her a pair of these "traditional" shoes once she begins to walk on her own. Protect your shins! Lol! Yep, we will get them bronzed one day! Lol!

Walk on Sloane, Walk on!

Forever I am...Sloane’s Mommy

Zzzzzz....Sleep Training

So you want me to put myself to sleep?!?

So like all parents, at some point you will have to "train" your child on getting a good nights sleep, more importantly how to self soothe themselves when they wake in the middle of the night or during a nap. Sloane's crutch for falling asleep is being rocked/held in our arms. We of course enjoy this, and don't have a problem rocking Sloane to sleep, but she does not remain asleep. When she wakes she is of course looking to be rocked back to sleep. Sloane has never sucked a pacifier nor a bottle, so her only knowledge of soothing comes from her parents in regards to sleep. More importantly, Sloane was not getting the amount of sleep that she desperately needed, and neither was Mommy. Therefore, sleep training was a must for us.

There are different methods used to sleep train children, and the best advice we have is to choose the method that works best for you and your family, and falls in line with your parenting beliefs. Or, you may do what we did and combine methods and make it your own.

The three common methods are The Ferber Method, which is the CIO (Cry It Out) approach, The No Cry Approach as well as The Sleep Lady, which is a combination of a no cry method and Ferber.

We began by reading the book The Sleepeasy Solution which was recommended and given to us by a close Soror and friend of mine, who not only read the book, but also hired one of the authors as a sleep consultant. After reading the book and putting together an AWESOME Excel Spreadsheet with a schedule for Sloane we began our sleep training journey at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, August 16th.

WOW! Talk about emotionally and physically draining! The first night was filled with tears from both Sloane and Mommy! Each time I checked in with Sloane and she reached out for me to pick her up, and cried out "Ma-Ma!" I felt as though a piece of my Soul died.

I CANNOT DO THIS!

Sloane cried for an hour and 30 minutes straight! When I looked at the monitor, I would see her turning her precious little head towards the door looking for me to come in her room, though when I came in I didn't pick her up to rock her to sleep. Ugh! This is too much! Ash took over the check-ins towards the end of the hour, though he was just as exhausted and emotionally drained as I was. I don't know if this method works for us or Sloane. However, we were determined to stick with it. After all, this is for Sloane, right?

After Sloane finally cried herself to sleep by 8:30 p.m., she did not wake until we woke her the next morning at 8:30 a.m. Now we had to deal with the same methods for naps. Ugh!

Well, you guessed it, she cried. She would cry louder during our check-ins, and only slept for roughly an hour out of the 2 hours she was supposed to sleep for her morning nap, and 30 minutes for the hour she was supposed to sleep for her afternoon nap. But, we pressed on...

Well, after the second night of Sloane crying for a solid hour and 45 minutes at bedtime , we decided that this method was not the right one for our family. Back to the drawing board.

After  my posts on Facebook, where I received words of encouragement and virtual hugs from friends, a former colleague of mine told me about The Sleep Lady. I immediately called Ash at work and told him about this, and I also bought the book for the iPad. I didn't know if it would work for us, but I definitely knew that allowing my child to cry for almost two hours, where she finally feel asleep from exhaustion, did not sit well with me, nor did I see this as Sloane learning how to self soothe herself and put herself to sleep. I will say that the one thing I did like about The Sleepeasy Solution was the schedule that you put together for your baby.

So, we read The Sleep Lady book and decided this was DEFINITELY the better method for our family. Yes, there will be tears, but we never leave Sloane alone in the room while she is awake, at least not initially.

The Sleep Lady method allows you to sit near your baby's crib and gradually move further away from the crib until you are out of the room. You also do not put your baby down awake and fully alert, but you put them down drowsy, so they still learn to put themselves to sleep, but without feeling abandoned. So we decided we would utilize The Sleep Lady method, and we added in our "Team Sharp" sleep training rules as well.

1. Bath
2. Pajama time and massage with lotion and mobile music playing
3. Bed time story
4. Jazz is then played as we cuddle and rock (Myles Davis "Flamingo Sketches")
5. Prayers
6. Final cuddle with Mommy; Mommy leaves the room
7. Daddy then cuddles
8. White noise is turned on and Daddy holds Sloane until she is drowsy
9. Daddy puts Sloane in her crib and cradles her head/neck area for about a minute
10. Sloane falls asleep
11. Daddy remains in room for 5 minutes
12. Nighty Night for Sloane!

Sloane sleeps from 7:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m. with naps from 9:30-11:30 a.m. and 2-3:00 p.m.

For her nap time I follow a similar ritual as with bedtime.

1. Read a book
2. Mobil music is played for 5 min. while rocking
3. White noise is turned on as Sloane gets drowsy
4. Mommy places Sloane in her crib and cradles her head/neck area for about a minute
6. Sloane falls asleep
7. Mommy remains in room for 5 minutes
8. Nap time for Sloane!

The first two weeks of this method in regards to her night time sleep have been good. When she has awaken she has often put herself back to sleep. When she fusses for longer than 5 minutes, Ash will go in and settle her down by putting his hands on her head and chest area, never picking her up unless she gets really upset, allowing her to put herself back to sleep. We have introduced a "lovey" for Sloane, which is her thumbie elephant. She does pick it up when she gets a little upset to comfort herself and we are happy about that.

Naps have of course been very tricky which is the norm for sleep training. I have noticed that if Sloane does not nap during the day she will not sleep well at night because she is "over tired" at this point. When she naps during the day she sleeps very well during the night. Naps are improving, with the difficult nap being the 2 hour nap in the morning. She will sleep for an hour straight and then wake. So, we are thinking that if she gets her solid 12 hours of sleep during the night, then she only needs 2 hours of naps during the day, receiving the 14 hours of sleep that she needs on a daily basis.

All in all we are happy that we are doing this with Sloane, because this is a necessary skill that she will need for the rest of her life. Getting a good nights rest is important. We really like the schedule as well because it makes it easier to make plans as a family, and my husband and I have our nights back which is very important!

We have almost completed a month of utilizing this sleep method and schedule, and the training continues for Sloane and her parents. Though this has been the most challenging thing thus far in our parenting journey, we wouldn't change our decision to sleep train Sloane. The journey continues so stay tuned for the update!

Until then we pray that our precious daughter has more days of peaceful and restful sleep filled with dreams of angels.

Sloane asleep with her Ellie =)

Forever I am...Sloane’s Mommy