I am definitely not the person to talk to when it comes to sleep training. In fact, you likely won’t ever read another post from me ever about this topic...Why? Because I suck at it. I’m a complete baby when it comes to sleep training my babies/kids. Many moms would be absolutely appalled at some of the habits we currently have or have had in the past. But I’m also under the impression that it’s as difficult for some, as it has been for me, so a lot of moms may be relieved to hear some of my “fail stories”. So I take it back, maybe one day I’ll get the nerve to confess to some poor sleep habits, sleep training fails, and all about how much I truly hate sleep training my kids!
But until that day, I do feel it necessary to mention one simple thing I’ve learned throughout my children’s sleeping history. And just because I’ve officially come to this realization, it doesn’t mean it’ll be super dang easy to follow through with the actualization of it. Now that I’m convinced of this, my hope is it will stick enough that it will no longer haunt us.
No, I should not prolong sleep training until after a vacation.
We travel quite a bit--meaning we’re in a lot of foreign beds, cribs, pack-n-plays, and various sleeping arrangements. And I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve prolonged sleep training of some sort, whether it’s an initial sleep training or the here-and-there sleep training (sleep regressions, teething, nightmares, growth spurts, etc., etc., etc.), until after a trip out of town.
We just got home from an eight-day-long vacation. Beforehand, neither of my kids were sleeping well. But I did what I always do and told myself that it wasn’t worth it to do another "round" of sleep training right before a trip because it would all be for nothing and I would just end up doing it again after we got home. Well, I’m officially a believer that this is FALSE. My two-year-old hasn't had any problems since being home, but really struggled with sleep during the first few nights of vacation-- resulting in some minor "sleep training" while on vacation. Luckily, each night of vacation got better and better, and she has been sleeping great since arriving home. My four-year-old didn't have a single issue on vacation because he was used to falling asleep in a bed with us from the previous week or two due to some new (and random) fears of his bedroom. So essentially, he slept with us for three weeks straight. And since being home? It's been rough.
4moms breeze Playards (left to right) GO, Plus, Classic
Had we nipped it in the bud and not allowed him to lose what good sleep habits he did have, we likely wouldn't be in this current situation. But since I had the thought, "Oh, a vacation is coming up. We can relax a bit on our sleep habits and start fresh once we get back home," we are basically screwed for the next little bit. But like I said before, we're no good at this sleep training thing so baby steps is the name of the game for us. Two nights in a row, he has fallen asleep in his own bed! That's good enough for us at this point, and we'll gradually start making our way back to our ideal bedtime and sleeping situations at a later date.