sleep sense program nights 5-10

Things are going okay....not great, just okay. I won't post all the hourly details but I want to write some notes about the progress. He had a few nights of regression where he woke up 5 times. Not good nights. I feel like he is in a hard stage of life because he's still so young, he still gets hungry in the night. So it's hard to know if I should feed him or help him go back to sleep. And with him being a preemie and a little small, I don't want to not feed him if he needs it. So I've just been nursing him when he wakes up at night, trying to keep him awake and then putting him back to bed awake and letting him fall asleep on his own. He's doing really well with that. He can totally go back to sleep on his own. It's just getting him to stay asleep. The last two nights he has only woken up once then twice, which is good, but it needs be NONE! That's the whole plan of this program. I'm struggling with his nap times a little. He eats when he wakes up then he is awake for about 45 minutes and starts to show signs he's getting tired so I put him down for a nap and he falls asleep but then about 20 minutes later he wakes up and won't g back to sleep. I try to help him go back to sleep but he won't, he's ready to get up and eat again. The author of the book says this is totally normal behavior for pacifier babies and she says eventually the naps will get longer and longer.....it's just a waiting game. She also says the more sleep they get during the day, the better they sleep at night, and not the other way around. Some parents think that if they keep the baby up all day they will sleep better at night, that's not the case because they get so over stimulated, they can't sleep well at night. I do feel like the days that he gets several good long naps, he sleeps longer periods of time at night. It's just hit or miss as to if and when he'll get good long naps. I'm trying to get him used to sleeping on his tummy, I know its controversial....but all my babies have slept on their tummies and as soon as they did, it helped them find their thumb and they could put themselves back to sleep on their own. That's the whole point of this program, self soothing.

So.....I do feel like the program is helping, we're just not quite where I want to be yet. I will keep at it and try my best to be as consistent as I can. I think it will continue to get better as he gets a little older. Technically he's only two months old, so I have to keep reminding myself of that and lower my expectations. He's such a sweet baby and not colicky, or fussy ever. He just needs a little help learning the skills of sleeping well.