The Quest for Sleep

So at the beginning of this week, Keith and I were dreaming of the days when we were struggling to wake Carli up to eat.

From last Friday through this Wednesday this is what we were dealing with all night long...

Actually, she was a lot more grumpy and clingy - but occasionally we would get that big grin and it would just melt your heart!

Anyway, after more than three nights of simply not sleeping b/c my daughter took after her Grammy and sleeps diagonal in any bed you put her in. This is a problem when she ended up in our bed - I had a corner, the dogs had a corner, Keith had a third of the bed and Carli enjoyed the other two thirds when she wasn't insisting on sharing my pillow. Anyway - Carli had won the battle of insisting on sleeping with us and screaming her little head off if you even got close to her bed. At first it was cute, b/c for the first time she wanted us to hold her while she slept. But that quickly got old when she wouldn't even let us put her down after she fell asleep! Then when you added on the night issues - it just wasn't going to work. I could not deal with a 6 month old in my bed (I simply did not sleep) and could not fathom doing this for the next 5 years...

So I went on a mission - I had tried Babywise but honestly the cry it out thing was really hard and with no sleep it was even more tough! So I didn't know what to do but I needed to do something. I posted our dilemma on this website called Mamasource and got a few suggestions. One lady offered to send me an ebook called The Sleep Sense Program. It was 198 pages and you better believe I read it in one day and got to work. Basically it does say you have to let the baby cry - otherwise they will never figure out how to soothe themselves to sleep. It also told me to take away her paci at night - made sense since if she lost it it would mean I would be getting up in the middle of the night to find it for her. I still had a hard time with the crying, but the book did an amazing job of helping me deal with that. So after weeks of random napping and a week of not sleeping - I was ready to go!!

Our first day, she won round one of the naps and cried the whole 1 hr 10 minutes. Our second nap, it was a split decision as she cried for 30 minutes, slept for 20, cried for 10 and slept for 1 hr 15 minutes! I can't even tell you the last time she did that. Then it was time to deal with bed. The book said her bedtime should be 7:00-7:30ish - which would not work the day we started b/c it was Wednesday night. She ended up taking a cat nap on the way to church and did fine. We did our new bedtime routine when we got home, eat, bath, 2 books, 2 songs, prayer and night-night. Oh my goodness. The child simply went to sleep! I'm not kidding! Keith agreed to handle her during the night for up to 30 minutes so that she would not get the idea to nurse for comfort. We had decided it was time to drop the night feedings too. So that night, he only had to get up once and she was back asleep in 15 minutes. She slept until 8 am!

Day two - nap number 1 was amazing - she slept for an hour 15 minutes again but with no fuss. Nap two, not so much and she only managed 30 minutes, so we went for an hour long walk so she would at least rest. I think she kind of needed a power nap around 5 b/c she was so tired, but she didn't think so and screamed at us for 30 minutes. But at 7:30 we started our bedtime routine and she was in bed, asleep before 8!!! I thought for sure I'd be up at 1 or 3 or for sure by 5 with putting her to bed so early. We heard only one whimper at 1 am and nothing else until 6:15 this morning! Woohoo!!!

Day three - we started a little earlier than planned, but not bad. She went down for her first nap at 8:20 and has been snoozing for an hour. I am very plsd. I have not figured out that third nap issue yet. She isn't quite ready to rely solely on two naps if she isn't going to sleep longer than 1 hr 15 minutes. If she makes it to two hr naps, I think we'd be okay with two naps.

Anyway - such are our adventures this week and thus the lack of posting. Keep praying for us as I'm sure we will get another curve ball thrown at us soon!!