A light at the end of the tunnel

Last week before we started sleep training, Jackson had fallen into a really nice day schedule.  Jackson would fall back asleep during my feeding between 5am and 5:30am and I could put him in his swing, where he would sleep until between 7:30am and 8:15am.  He then stayed up for 2 hours, took a nap that was between an hour and 1 hour 20 minutes, up for another 2 hours, then took another nap that was anywhere between 40 min and 1 hour 40 min, up for another 2 hours, and then one more nap for 30-40 min.  Then he was up until bedtime, usually 2-3 hours. 

As nice as that was, bedtime was awful!  So we started sleep training to see if we could have better nights too.  In the process, Jackson was getting up between 6:15 and 6:30, which was late enough that he was awake and up for the morning, but early enough that he was still tired.  Consequently, naps were pushed earlier, so he had to stay up later between them so as to not give him an extra nap, then wasn't sleeping well during the naps, and we had a tired, cranky baby a good portion of the day. 

I was starting to get worried that things wouldn't get better.  I gave in during the day yesterday and let him cuddle with me in our bed after he woke up early again from his second nap.  He fell asleep nursing, and I let him stay for about an hour.  I was worried it would backfire, but also worried that he wasn't getting enough sleep and was miserable all day.  By 7:45 last night, Jackson was exhausted and really fussy.  So at 8pm we decided to give in and put him to bed earlier than we had the last two nights.  We went through our bedtime routine and put Jackson in his crib at 8:30pm.  Surprisingly, it took him a few minutes to start crying, and then stopped crying by 8:45pm!!!  He then slept all the way until 4:15am!  He cried (not too hard) for about 15 minutes, and was quiet until 4:50am.  He started fussing again, and a little after 5am I decided to go in and feed him.  Well, like he did last week, he fell asleep eating, I put him in his swing a little before 5:40am, and he slept until 8:10am!  Jackson woke up a happy, smiley baby and went down for a nap 2 hours later.  Perfect schedule for us!  Now if we can get him to stay asleep all the way until his 5am feeding, I will be one happy mommy!