Sleep training...kind of

Dylan is now 12 weeks old, and his Dr. said I could start sleep training at 3 months. He'll be officially 3 months at the end of this coming week, so I'm thinking about exactly what I want to do and how. I thought I'd try just putting him down this week when he was tired to see what happened. (The past 6 weeks or so this has not been successful in the slightest.) The first few days of this week were like a dream! I basically just laid him down in his bed when he started yawning, and he drifted off to sleep on his own! I couldn't believe it! We've been bouncing him to sleep while holding him for the last 6 weeks, since every time you tried to put him down he'd wake up and start screaming. The end of the week did not go well, but it gave me hope that sleep training should go well when I get serious about it!

I started this process with Micah at 4 months, and basically he had to cry it out for a good week before we made any progress. But after that, we've had very few problems with him sleeping during the night or day - even up to now! I am hoping that this process is easier with Dylan. The boys already seem to have such different temperaments that I wouldn't be surprised if Dylan takes to it a little faster. Today he took two good naps in his own bed, one of which started with me putting him down completely awake! (The other started with Steve bouncing him to sleep, then putting him down.) Plus tonight I put him down for bedtime awake, and I haven't heard any peeps out of our room yet. :) There is hope!

I think I'll wait until after my sister and her family's visit until I get going with the hard core sleep training (first couple days of September). But until then, I'll give it a try when I can and see if we can get some good results. We definitely seem to be heading in the right direction!