4/20: Parents: "My biggest question is what do I do in the morning when he is calling out for me before 6?"

MW: Go to him if he becomes upset after about 5:30am but not before. The reason is that if you go to him substantially earlier, he will learn to fight his early morning sleep and start the day too early. This will make it impossible to get to 12-1pm for a good quality nap.

At night, if he is up talking or crying but you do not think he is ill, do not go to him at all. If you are not sure and want to do a quick check, than it is essential that father dart in and out to check for fever, vomiting, or difficulty breathing. If he is not ill, exit immediately without talking (very important), soothing, or any social interaction.

NIGHT #1, 4/19: A lot of crying at sleep onset (about 90-120minutes).

NIGHT #2, 4/20: Substantially less crying at sleep onset (about 30 minutes or less). The good news is instead of him finally falling asleep at 9 like he did two nights ago, last night he finally fell asleep around 8 and I think he slept until about 5-5:15am with one brief waking."

NIGHT #3, 4/21: No crying at sleep onset.

4/21: MW: "On NIGHT #1, the first night, you put him to bed at 5:30pm. After about 2 hours of crying, he remained awake in his crib for 30 minutes and fell asleep around 8pm. The previous two nights, he was put to sleep later and stayed awake in his crib until 10-10:30pm. On NIGHT #1, he actually fell asleep earlier. He did awaken as expected around 4am but he did not cry. On previous early morning wake-ups (3-4am) he cried for about half an hour.

On NIGHT #2, he cried much less, about 30 minutes, slept about 30 minutes, awoke without crying for about 30 minutes, and then fell asleep at 7pm.

Let's try to tweak his schedule to shift all times (the morning wake-up, the nap, and the bedtime) to a slightly later time.

Let's try to put him down for his nap around 1pm. Either slowly push it to the later hour or do it abruptly. To accomplish this, he might need extra distraction, comforting, entertainment so he doesn't get too out of sorts. The timing of the nap is more important than its duration. My expectation is that a later nap will be more restorative and thus it might naturally shorten in duration. For now, no matter when the nap starts, wake him after two hours. We do not want a late 2.5 to 3 hour nap because it would interfere with an early bed time. Our hope is that in the future, he will nap a solid 1-2 hours, and the nap will start somewhere between 12noon and 2pm.

Because we are pushing his nap later, let's move his bedtime to 6pm starting tomorrow night. Our hope is that in the future, there will no night awakenings and he will sleep in until 5:30-6:30am.

4/23: Mother: Last night (NIGHT #4) he talked softly to himself until about 7:30 and slept until about 5 so we know he still needs some more sleep but we feel/hope we are on the right path. He fell asleep yesterday around 12:15 for his nap and woke up on his own at 2:30. We are very happy with the positive effect of his earlier bedtime!

MW: As mentioned on 4/21, try to keep him up for a nap until 1pm and do not let him nap for longer than 2 hours. Wake him then even though he will be out of sorts for several minutes ("sleep inertia"). The reason why you "had bouts of good sleeping and then suddenly with no discernable change in the routine it ends and we have several days of disastrous results" is because the bedtime was usually a little too late.

4/25: Mother: He is definitely starting to get back to sleeping through the night and getting more quality rest overall. As each night progresses he's talking and playing for less amount of time in his crib before falling asleep. He's eating better too! He's also been a little less moody. When he's happier, we're happier! The quality of our sleep has improved as the quality of his sleep has improved. I'm able to enjoy time with him more b/c I'm not as completely exhausted and just going through the motions. Our happiness as a family ultimately revolves around the happiness of our children. When he sleeps better, we all sleep better and hence we all feel better.

5/13: Mother: To summarize, we had been seeing small but steady improvement with an earlier bedtime but the vacation really threw off the sleeping through the night. We were very consistent throughout though with an early bedtime and it does seem to work for him. As soon as we got back, we stuck with it and he's been sleeping through the night since our return on Saturday no problem. [This illustrates how consistent schedules will dampen the disruptive effects of colds or vacations] I definitely see an improvement in him–he's happier and eating better, which of course makes me happier. I see fewer temper tantrums.

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child

Weissbluth Method Infant Nap App.