Sleep Training

This week we start training Faith to sleep unassisted. She's ten months old now and still isn't sleeping through the night. Part to blame is her ezcema and dry skin, which seem to bother her the most at night. Also to 'blame' is her co-sleeping with us. (and I say, blame loosely because I hate to admit that we caused her this problem in the first place...) She's gotten so used to our scent and nursing to sleep that she won't sleep anywhere else, not even in her own crib for naps. In retrospect hubby and I don't regret having her co-sleep with us. We love it, even now. As first time parents, the novelty of having a baby, of looking into her beautiful angelic face, her breathing seemingly in rhythm with ours... that's something we will always cherish.
But now, it is time to move on. We are ready to let go (just a tiny bit!) and let her sleep in her own crib, in her own room.
The training to sleep, though, is the difficult part.

Here's what we plan to do - (aka goals) -
1. teach her to sleep unassisted. She hasn't learned to sleep on her own, and always used to need either me nursing her, or dadddy patting her to sleep. She also hasn't learned to fall back to sleep on her own. UNASSISTED. There's no other way to teach her this but let her be. No assisting from us. No more breastfeeding till she's zonked out, no more patting.

2. teach her to consolidate her sleep, that is, to sleep through the night (which means having the ability to fall back to sleep should she wake up)

3. nap sufficiently. at ten months to one year she should still be napping twice a day (morning and afternoon) for 2-4 hours a day. She's been waking up after only 45 minutes and because she can't go back to sleep, she's overtired.

Let the training begin.