Last night was the first night ever that Justin slept the whole night through — from 7pm to 6:30am! We started "sleep training" Justin last Friday. Sleep training basically involves letting him cry until he falls back to sleep on his own.

That first night he cried for around an hour at about 11:30pm and then for about 15 minutes a couple of times after that, probably at around 1am and then 3am. We went "cold turkey", making sure he didn't see us while he was crying. Of course, we naturally wanted to go in and comfort him as we had done night after night ever since he was born but we knew that if we did that, he'd cry and yell even more hysterically and chances are we'd then end up picking him up (he was conditioned to that). I think it helped that during that first hour of crying, I was in our dining room and so his cries were muted. Now, whenever Gwen and I are sleeping in bed (right next to his crib), when he cries we hide under our blanket so he doesn't see us. For us, ensuring that he doesn't see us in the middle of the night has been key. Thankfully, the nights following that first night, he has cried with less frequency and duration (not more than 15 minutes). We'll have to see if he can keep this up... We've got our fingers crossed!

We also note that since we started the sleep training, his appetite in the mornings has been excellent — probably because he's not getting breast fed anymore during the night.

Justin will be exactly 9 months old tomorrow!