Sleep training - progress report #1

I gotta say, sleep training is going really well.  Like, amazingly by-the-book well.  Lincoln is catching on beautifully and his crying is minimal.  I never expected it would go like this. I like to think that it's at least partly because I'd done some reading and some sleep training before officially implementing the sleep consultants sleep plan.  I'm already aware of sleep cues and the white noise machines that I bought for both kids' rooms are also a huge help. 

Sometimes I feel a bit silly that I paid all that money for a sleep plan and wonder if I maybe jumped the gun.  But then I remind myself that there is indeed valuable information in Lincoln's plan that I wouldn't have had otherwise.  And I would have continued to doubt my strategies every time he cried.  Now I know what to do and the plan, written by a professional, gives me the confidence I need to be sure that I'm doing the right things. 

I know it's only day 3 and things could go blatantly wrong at any time - but from all I've read the first 24 hours are the hardest, and they weren't that hard, and it's gotten better each day.  We're working on making him go through two sleep cycles for his naps instead of one.  And we're down to two feeds in the night (this includes his 10:40pm dream feed), with plans of cutting out the middle of the night feed next week.  His crying has really scaled back and he doesn't scream like he used to.

For some reason with all of this, I am more tired than I've ever been.  Even though I'm starting to get a little more sleep. I suppose the stress is maybe catching up with me, and it's probably going to be a long time before I actually feel rested when I wake up in the morning. 

But honestly, it just feels really good that something that is going right right now.  It's been a long time since something positive has happened. I am desperate for something to just go right for us and I'm clinging on to this, our sleep training progress amidst a whole lot of wrong.