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This is the second part of “How my baby became a good sleeper in just one month” – you can read the part one here.

At first I tried to sit on the mattress holding Eric in my arms and rocking him – but he was fighting and crawling away from me, so that clearly wasn’t working. Then I put him in the cot and he started to scream – I lied down on the mattress beside the cot, said good night to him, put my hand through the bars and near him and just lied still.

First couple of weeks it took Eric 45 minutes of crying to fall asleep – but he wasn’t crying alone in the room, I was right there (pretending to be asleep) and he knew it. So finally he would settle down, crawl underneath my hand, hold it in his arms and fall asleep. I would get up, cover him with a blanket and leave. Then after a couple of hours he was waking up again, I would go into his room, lie beside him and after crying a while he would fall asleep again.

In the third week he was waking up and crying but I didn’t go to him immediately and sometimes he could fall asleep on his own. Other times I had to go into the room and lie next to his cot, sometimes even to pick him up and put him on the mattress near me, patting on the back and shushing until he falls asleep – then I put him in the cot.

In the fourth week he was waking up 2 times at night, one he was settling himself and the other I had to help him to go back to sleep. Usually the first time was around 1am and the second around 5am in the morning – I was feeding him then and he kept on sleeping till 7 – 7:30 in the morning.

Finally after a month I knew – this routine was working, because Eric got used to sleeping in his own room, in his cot, wasn’t afraid of being alone or in the dark, and I only had to settle him once or twice through the night. Considering his previous sleep issues that was a huge achievement for me – I managed to avoid sleep school and gave my baby good sleeping habits on my own.