Sleep Training

Today was one of the worst days in Jax's short little life. His Mommy and Daddy thought it would be a great idea to traumatize him and begin sleep training--you know, starting him on the road to sleeping through then night. We are using the book The Baby Sleep Solution: A Proven Program to Teach Your Baby to Sleep Twelve Hours a Night
and the authors' ideas seem very valid and make sense to us. Apparently, they did NOT make sense to poor Jax.

The first step is to get him to eat only four times per day, rather than his usual grazing. I had to try to keep him from eating until it had been four hours--much later than his usual 3 hour interval. Well, needless to say, no amount of entertaining, distracting, or cajoling could get him make it the full four hours. I felt okay with that, and he did, too, until about 5:30. He wanted to eat NOW. Unfortunately, I didn't listen to my gut and tried to make him wait until the target time at 8:00--BIG mistake. I've never seen the poor thing so sad and uncomfortable. We gave him a bath to try to distract him but it didn't work. I gave in and fed him but he was traumatized.

I have never felt so guilty in my life :( I really hope that I will be able to stick with the program. I know from now on I need to trust my gut more and listen to my heart, rather than a book. Giving him a two ounce bottle at 5:30 wouldn't have killed any of us, and would have made our evening much more enjoyable. No more parenting out of a book for me!!

PS. These pictures are not from tonight. They are of him burping a few nights before. I just thought they illustrated the point.  Don't call CPS on us just yet.