Sleep training is not for the weak at heart. We've been at it consistently for about 8 weeks and while Bug is trained, it is still an ongoing process.
First, we tackled naps. Turns out I was waiting for Bug to get overtired, instead of just tired. I discovered that what most children exhibit as "sleepy" signs are Bug's "overtired" signs. His sleepy cues are much, much more subtle and I had to watch him very closely for about 2 days to really learn them. Now, I can spot them a mile away and we rarely get to the overtired point.
Then we moved on to adjusting his bedtime. It was 8pm. We slowly moved it back in 15 minute increments until we figured out that 7:30 is much, much better. He doesn't fight us now, we rarely have evening melt-downs and he still sleeps 10-11 hours each night.
Now we're working on wake-up. We've been working on wake-up time for about 4 weeks now. And it's definitely improving. While we were trying to figure out the right bedtime, once we got to 7:15pm, Bug started waking up at 5:30am. Ummmm, no. Not gonna happen. And even once we pushed back bedtime to 7:30, he still continued to wake up before 6am. Still not a decent wake time. My goal is for him to wake up between 6:30-7 each morning. The book I've been reading and following is Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. In the book, it recommends ignoring your child until the wake hour. Disclaimers: this is for children older than 12 months and in the book 6am is considered a decent "wake time."
I was very hesitant to try this, even though almost every other thing in the book had proven true (at least for my child). I just didn't think it would work. But after a week of pre-6am wake-up calls, I was willing to give it a try. It took 2 days and Bug was sleeping past 6. So, the next week I "ignored" till after 6:15 - after 1 day (Monday) he consistently slept until after 6:15, most days until 6:40 or so. I did that for 2 weeks, now I've moved it to 6:30. This is only day 2 and while Bug wakes up at about 6:15, he babbles and "snoozes" for another 30 minutes or so. Both days this week we've not really gotten up for the day until at least 6:40. I'm ok with that.
This weekend he granted his Daddy and I sleep on Saturday until 7 and Sunday til 6:45!Now, that I could get used to!
