Our Journey Into Night Weaning: Night 1

Yesterday, I talked about how we have decided to night wean 19 month old Mackynzie, using Dr. Jay Gordons method on changing sleeping patterns in the family bed in this post. This is how our first night went.


 I prepared myself for a long night.  I fully expected to get very little sleep, and braced myself for the possibility of a mama-baby melt down. Much to my surprise, it didn't go horribly.

 We got Mackynzie down at about 8pm, and I crawled into bed a little after 10:30. When she woke up for the first time, I glanced at the clock and was surprised to see it was already 2:30 (Of course, the night we are prepared for an all-nighter she sleeps, right?). I laid her on my chest and she imidiately asked for 'boobies'. I told her 'boobies all done.' and laid her back on my chest. She cried a little, but laid down anyway. She moved on and off my chest for a little bit, and I rubbed her back while she laid on her pillow. This went on for what I can only assume was 40mins to an hour, at which point she fell asleep and so did I. She didn't wake again until 6:38. I nursed her then, and she feel back to sleep until 8am.

I woke feeling much more rested than I have felt in quite some time. It made me both hopeful and cautious of night 2.

We didn't just decide to do this and wing it. We did have a plan, and made some preparations to ready all of us.

The Plan

 After talking about it for a bit, we decided it would be best for us if Cody slept downstairs (Don't worry, he wasnt banished to an uncomfortable couch.) and I took on the first couple of nights on my own. Then when I felt like Mackynzie was doing well, Cody would come back to the bed and we would both take on comforting her if need be. We mainly decided to do it this way because Cody has to be up for work early in the morning, and deals with machinery at work that would be unsafe to operate without a good nights sleep. We also decided that the most important 7 hours for us was between 11pm and 6am. That way, it flowed well with our natural sleep and wake up times. Mackynzie and I are early birds, so we wake anytime between 6 and 7.

The Preparations

 We have always known our bedtime routine wasn't the strongest (it wasn't the weakest either.), especially with the last month or so being super busy due to our move. So naturally, the first preparation we were going to make was defining our bedtime routine. We figured out what made sense, how our nights typically go, and developed a routine from that. We now start the bed time preparations with dinner, which is between 5:15 and 6pm (Flexibility is important for our family, because we often have things come up, or have evening activities, so a wide time frame is what we need.) We do our best to make sure Mackynzie eats a high healthy fat, high calorie meal to try to help her sleep a bit better. Right after dinner and clean up, we take the dogs for their walk (If Mackynzie didn't eat much dinner, she takes a snack and some water with her on the walk.), which is typically a half hour. After our walk its bath time, which we keep in the time frame of 6:30 and 7:30pm. Bath time is followed by stories with Cody and a cup of almond milk between 7:30-8pm. Finally, at 8pm, I take Mackynzie into bed and nurse her to sleep.


 I think our new schedule has helped a tone already. Not just for Mackynzie, either! We are much more productive in the evenings now and my stress level for little things like having the house clean for the night, has been greatly reduced.

Back to night one though, I am skeptical. It was so much less than what we had both anticipated. Like when you're watching a suspenseful movie and you're sure the bad guy is about to pop out but he doesn't... Maybe it was a random fluke, or maybe this is just the right time and we are on the right track. Too bad we can't whip out that trusty parenting manual.