Self soothing success

So team Burgin rocked last night! I had originally planned to face the self sooth (not cry it out) journey at the weekend, but Tom announced we were starting it last night.

Luckily we have a really good routine in place at night anyway, we just needed to make a couple of adjustments. The main issue with our night routine was feeding to sleep. It means that I am quite tied to that responsibility, which in itself wasn't the main motivation as I would just cope and work around that as it's not forever. The main worry was we would struggle when he was no longer breastfeeding.

We just switched his last feed to after his bath and introduced a bedtime story with Daddy. Whilst reading I watched for sleepy signs and when he rubbed his eyes, we put him in his swaddle sack and Tom carried on reading.

Half way through this the tesco order arrived so I just switched on elephant, it has star projections and lullaby music, and left him in his cot with his comforter. Watching him, I decided he needed his arms free to aid his self soothing. He was fairly calm to begin with then started to cry, when he got quite upset I picked him out, cuddled for a few seconds then put him back in.

The cries this time were far less dramatic and I sat down behind the cot. He watched his elephant and had a few minor false starts but all in all he was asleep about 20 mins after we started.

He woke at 11.30 for a feed, earlier than normal but still 4hrs from the time of his previous feed. Again, I put him back in his cot before he was fully asleep and he wasn't hugely impressed. I switched on elephant but he was still quite unhappy so Tom suggested the dummy. When he eventually took it, he went off in seconds.

He started fidgeting at 2.30 and I popped his dummy in when he was threatening to wake, asleep and dummy spat out in seconds.

Another feed at 4.30 and no need for elephant this time, just dummy and straight off.

Whilst each time was a little more disruptive for me than normal, I feel we have made a massive leap. I know each night will be different, but it has boosted our confidence. As always, our little lion man was just so easy and compliant to the whole process. What a little hero.

It's daddy time today as Tom wanted me to have some me time, so I am off shopping whilst they do baby sign and baby things!