It was bound to happen...

and one day it did!

Remember back at around the 3 week mark when I was talking about how "they" said that my infant should be on some sort of a schedule already? And I was all like "HA!" Why in the world was I stressing about such a silly thing back then? I knew if I just went with the flow that it would happen naturally over time & boy am I glad I was right. Carter has put himself on a wonderful little schedule the last few weeks. I definitely think that the sleep training helped to make it happen, but it's so nice to have some predictability back in our lives. It only took 5 months. =)

No, Carter is still not STTN, but I'm okay with that at this point. His wake-up times are predictable now. It's seriously almost like clockwork both during the night & all day long. Despite teething, he is still sleeping like a champ! Thank goodness for small favors.

Here's our day-to-day schedule in a nutshell (on my day's off at least):

09:30/10AM:  Wake for the day. Nurse. Play.
11:30AM/12PM: Nap (usually between 45mins.-1.5 hours)
01:00PM: Nurse. Play.
02:30/03:00PM: Nap (again usually 45mins.-1.5 hours)
04:00PM: Nurse. Play.
06:00PM: Nap (usually short 45mins.-1 hour)
07:00PM: Nurse. Play.
07:30/08:00PM: Bedtime routine begins.
08:30PM: In Crib & down for the night.
02:00/03:00AM: Wake. Nurse. Right back to sleep.
07:00AM: Wake. Nurse. Right back to sleep.

Start all over again.

Needless to say, our sleep training method is working for us. We are doing a modified CIO. We look for signs of sleepiness (ie. yawning, eye rubbing, whining) and when this begins we lay Carter down in his crib, turn on his mobile or seahorse, pat him on the back, tell him we love him & then leave the room. We let him fuss until his fussing turns into crying & then I start watching the clock. If he continues to cry for 5 mins. I will go in the room, shhhh him, pat him on the back & occasionally will have to replace his pacifier, then I leave the room again. Then I let him fuss until he starts crying & the clock starts again until 7 mins. repeat & then 10 mins. He rarely ever makes it past that first check anymore without settling himself & then passing out.

We will be at 3 weeks of crib sleeping as of this Friday. I see now that the last time we tried this he was just too little & we were going about it all wrong. Yes, I realize that the pacifier is a bit of a sleep crutch, but I'm okay with that for now. He can & will fall asleep without it more often then not, but he does occasionally still want it & that's alright for the moment. We will worry about getting rid of it totally later on down the road.