Chair Method/Sleep Lady Shuffle - Success for my God Awful Sleeper

[snapdragons_]

Just wanted to share our success with using the method from Kim West’s book Good Night Sleep Tight.

A few weeks ago I was scouring this sub for any success stories I could find with more gentle/gradual sleep training methods after we bailed on Ferber after one night (or should I say 4 minutes).

I’ll say this though about our Ferber experience. It gave me really valuable info about my baby. When I left the room he was crying like he never had before in his life - hyperventilating, choking on his spit, it was horrible. When I went in for our first check in at 3 minutes he was calm with in 2 minutes and when I left again that’s when it escalated past even remotely tolerable. This experience definitely showed me that my son needed a more gentle/gradual approach as it was my leaving the room that escalated him. I know a lot of babies are triggered by having their parents in the room during sleep training so I felt this was valuable info as it informed what method we decided to go with instead.

Anyways, here are my notes as I found other people’s detailed experiences really helpful when I was researching sleep training. Couple of details - my son is ten months old, he’d been unswaddled since 2 months, night weaned at 6 months and in his own room since 8 months. Prior to sleep training he was waking every hour or two (6+ times a night) and needing to be rocked back to sleep. It was unbearable. Any way without further ado:

Chair Method/SLS

12/4 Night 1 (Position 1)

-in crib at 7:48, out at 8:35 (47 mins)

~9.5 hours

-0 wakes

-rise at 6:01 AM

12/5 Night 2 (Position 1)

-in crib at 7:00, out at 7:23 (23 mins)

~7.5 hours, ~2.5 hours

-1 wake (67 mins)

-rise at 6:26 AM

12/6 Night 3 (Position 1)

-in crib at 7:00, out at 7:04 (4 mins)

~7 hours, ~2 hours, ~1.5 hours

-2 wakes (19 mins, 4 mins)

-rise at 5:27 AM

12/7 Night 4 (Position 2)

-in crib at 7:05, out at 7:10 (5 mins)

~3.5 hours, ~7 hours, ~1 hour

-2 wakes (3 mins, 38 mins)

-rise at 7:00 AM

12/8 Night 5 (Position 2)

-in crib at 7:22, out at 7:27 (5 mins)

~11 hours

-0 wakes

-rise at 6:23 AM

12/9 Night 6 (Position 2)

-in crib 7:02, out at 7:06 (4 mins)

~9.5 hours, ~1.5 hours

-1 wake (10 mins)

-rise at 6:33 AM

12/10 Night 7 (Position 3)

-in crib 6:50, out at 7:11 (21 mins)

~10 hours

-0 wakes

-rise at 5:19 AM

12/11 Night 8 (Position 3)

-in crib 7:05, out at 7:21 (16 mins)

~2.5 hours, ~1 hour, ~6.5 hours

-2 wakes (3 mins, 11 mins)

-rise at 5:54 AM

12/12 Night 9 (Position 3)

-in crib 6:43, out at 7:03 (23 mins)

~9.5 hours, ~1.5 hours

-1 wake (3 mins)

-rise at 5:56 AM

12/13 Night 10 (Position 4)

-in crib 7:27, out at 7:45 (18 mins)

~9 hours, ~0.5 hours

-1 wake (75 mins)

-rise at 6:26AM

12/14 Night 11 (Position 4)

-in crib 6:50, out at 7:01 (11 mins)

~10.5 hours

-0 wakes

-rise at 5:22AM

12/15 Night 12 (Position 4)

-in crib 7:33, out at 7:42 (9 mins)

~11 hours

-0 wakes

-rise at 6:25AM

12/16 Night 13 (Independent)

-in crib 6:48, out at 6:56 (8 mins)

~11 hours

-0 wakes

-rise at 5:45AM

12/17 Night 14 (Independent)

-in crib 6:41, out at 6:55 (14 mins)

~11 hours

-0 wakes

-rise at 5:35AM

12/18 Night 15 (Independent)

-in crib 6:55, out at 7:09 (14 mins)

~11 hours

-0 wakes

-rise at 6:05AM

A few more details for context - we put the baby in the crib after doing our bedtime routine of (1) pajamas and night dipe (2) read 3 books (3) bottle (4) gas med (5) sleepsack (6) lights out and white noise on (7) rock 5 mins

Also when I say “wakes” above I mean that’s how many times he woke up upset enough for me to go in and do the process over. Even on 0 wake nights there were still times he woke up and whined for a few minutes before falling back asleep.

Okay! This probably a boring over share but I hope it helps someone desperately typing ‘chair method’ into the search bar after an awful night.

 

[whalefood]

@snapdragons_ Hey, i know it’s been a while but your post has inspired me to do this with my LO and we’re on night 3 right now! Thanks for sharing.

I’ve a question - when you say “redo the process again” during night wakes do you mean you’d keep LO in crib and just shush/pat till he’s asleep again or feed / rock to sleep?

 

[butterflykisses91886]

@whalefood Hi!!! I want to do this with my baby too and she is not weaned either. How did it go for you?

 

[whalefood]

@butterflykisses91886 Hey! I didn’t see much progress after a few days - it was still taking him 30 mins to fall asleep and actually got worse one night taking over an hour. Granted, I could’ve kept going longer (usually 2 wks is a good timeline to “try” something new) but I gave up

Research shows 80% of infants need assistance falling asleep in the first year of life, and moreover 20-30% of infants experience sleep problems like night wakening or difficulty falling asleep in the first three years of life. I figured rocking / holding him to sleep currently works for my lifestyle and developmentally he’s not ready to wean off my assistance. And knowing that it’s totally normal as per research made me feel better. In fact, there’s no evidence that infants who sleep well (either independently or as a result of training) end up good sleepers in toddlerhood, etc. So it’s not like I’m creating any bad habits by meeting him where he is developmentally at the moment! I’ll probably start again in a couple months.

TLDR I felt he wasn’t ready and stopped.