The First Rule of Sleep Training Is ...

.... You don't talk about sleep training! Unless you are me. And then you talk about it to anyone with ears or a pulse. A few weeks ago, the coffee guy outside of my office asked me how long it took Milo to "settle" the night before. So yea, I talk about it.

I love to sleep. I used to take long luxurious naps on Saturday afternoons, lazily dozing in and out of consciousness while a Lifetime movie quietly played in the background.

For a very short, yet incredibly amazing time in my life, I lived roughly 5 blocks away from my office in NYC and was able to sleep until nearly 8:30am every single weekday.

Those were my glory days.

No one warned me how bad it could get.

I knew that my oldest sister had some problems getting my nephew into a good sleep routine when he was an infant, and that sometimes babies wake up a few times a night to eat, but I pretty much figured that Milo would, well ... SLEEP LIKE A BABY.

Wrong.

In fact, whoever came up with that phase couldn't possibly have actually had a baby.

My kid's sleep mode was broken from about 2 months on. I made every single "mistake" in the book. (Literally in ALL of the books (this one is my favorite.)

- Nurse to sleep ... check!
- Put down completely asleep ... check!
- Never put him down to nap ... like ever ... check!
- NEVER let him fuss at night ... check!

Milo was up every 45 minutes during the hell on earth that is known as the "4 Month Sleep Regression." Brian and I were losing it and I was hanging on by an actual thread. You haven't experienced true helplessness until you haven't slept longer than 3 hrs a night for about a week straight and find yourself actually ANGRY at a 16 week old baby.

I made an executive decision for the health and sanity of my entire family, and we decided to sleep train Milo. There are a few different ways of doing so, but the general idea is that you teach your baby how to fall asleep independently without using any tools (i.e. unicorn-magical-boobs) to fall asleep.

I am not going to lie and say that it 100% worked the first time we tried, because it didn't. Just like with anything that your trying to instill as a habit, consistency is key.

We weren't consistent and we let old habits creep back in and after about 2 months we were back in a vicious cycle of 3-4 wake-ups a night and a ton of tears, both mine and Milo's. BUT after some pep talks and tough love from key members of my mom tribe AND our pediatrician (Hey Dr. D!!), we started sleep training again about a month ago and it has been relatively smooth sailing ever since.

For anyone who is on the fence about sleep training, my advice is this:

Your babies will be OK, a little bit of crying and protesting falling asleep independently is worth the great sleep that they need to restore their little bodies and brains each night. And moms and dads need their rest as well.

We are ALL better parents when we are able to recharge our batteries.

I don't think that I will ever get back to my deliciously long naps, but at the very least, I am back to sleeping roughly 7 hrs a night and that my friends, is a #blessing.