Sleep Training

I've purposefully not written the post for a long time. We started sleep training at the beginning of the summer, and six weeks later it still makes me shudder. I couldn't even write about it. It was just that painful. I'm mad at myself that we even had to go through this. We've had a newborn before! I know how fast sleep habits form! I know how important good sleep is! But, I also have an excuse for every bad habit we created. Emily had reflux and she had to sleep at an incline. She slept SO GOOD with a swaddle. She got a cold and I had to rock her to sleep....and then the cold went away and I had to keep rocking her. Ugh.

So the last week of school I started gearing up. I re-read the major parts of three different sleep books. I decided to be super woman and start the process on a Friday while Bryce was still at work. In my head it was going to be no big deal. I'd lay her down flat in her crib without a swaddle, she'd cry for a little while, but eventually she'd be so tired she'd have to fall asleep. We'd be done with sleep training by Monday. Right? Right?! No. She cried for a whole HOUR with me going in and out like a mad woman. I gave up. But Emily was so MAD that she missed that nap that she feel asleep in my arms at the next feeding and REFUSED to fall back asleep in her crib at all. Even with all the props back. Fast forward one week. Take Two. Bryce is with me. We decide to try and break our habits at night. Emily went to bed at 7:30 and CRIED until midnight. She would.not.go.to.sleep. without her swaddle and nap nanny. At 12:00 we both gave up and the minute she had her props back she was out like a light. UGH. Fast forward three more days. We've rested up. We're ready. Come hell or high water, we are breaking her of this!! Honestly, I was afraid she would roll right out of nap nanny she was getting so big. It just had to be done. Take Three. We laid her down in her crib and walked out. The crying began. We waited and went in every three minutes. Still crying. We stretched out our to visits every five minutes. Still crying. We worked up to ten minutes. She finally went to sleep, but then started waking up every hour on the hour to cry some more. She cried so much the first night, that Bryce and I had to go sleep in our storage room upstairs and take shifts for going in to Emily (Charlotte miraculously slept through it all). Morning came and we were tired. But-we did it! She went a whole night in her own crib, flat, with no swaddle. The second night was better, night three even better than that. It literally took us a whole week, but by the end of the first week she was laying down in her crib and going right to sleep. No crying at all.

This picture pretty much sums up sleep training: Exhausting!