Sleep Training

So, we finally did it....we did the whole sleep training....cry it out thing. Ugh! She's always been a pretty naughty sleeper. Well, she had times she did ok, but everyone always told me to let her cry it out, and I thought I never could. I said I never would actually, but then it just got to the point that I couldn't do it any longer!!!!!

Up until 5 months, she did pretty good. She was in her crib, in her room, and woke up once a night, which I was fine with. Theeeeen she started rolling over, so we stopped swaddling her and then she would roll on her tummy and not be able to get to her back and she would scream. She would wake up like every couple hours and I was sooo tired. Then right after that she got really sick (just after Thanksgiving), and we started putting her in our bed with us on her boppy. She LOVED it, and she slept so good for the next couple months just like that!! She had her own little bed, and we slept great too since she didn't really move around too much in it.

At 7 months she started getting crayyyyy-z in her sleep and we just couldn't have her in our bed anymore so we moved the crib in our room, took off one of the sides, and she had her own little bed right next to me, but then she just wanted me to snuggle her all night and just kept crawling up to my face and slapping me, or crying, or snuggling me and I just couldn't sleep at all, and I did that for like 3 months.

Well, just after she turned 10 months, I decided I wanted to put the side up on the crib cause she turned into a dare devil and always wanted to jump off the bed and I didn't want to always have to worry about it during naps and when she went to bed, but she just hated being trapped in there. I thought I still wanted her in her room (I turned into a paranoid crazy person when I had a baby). Sooo, it was a Monday (the last week in April) when I put the side up and she just screamed during her naps. I just let her cause I thought she would fall asleep, but she never did, so I got her out after like an hour in a half. On Monday night she woke up at about 2 AM and Austin and I just decided to let her cry. So we went in the family room and listened to her cry until about 4 AM. At 4, Austin had to get to sleep, so I jumped in her crib and snuggled her to sleep (naughty me). I felt like I ruined the whole thing getting in her crib, but Austin just had to sleep. On Tuesday, same thing with her naps. She cried the whole time, and she never went to sleep so I just got her out (seriously didn't nap once for 2 days). Tuesday I was in a panic just thinking about the night, so we decided to move her crib into her own room and just DO IT!!! I really didn't believe she could ever fall asleep on her own without her binky cause she pretty much never had up until that point. Tuesday night she went right to sleep like usual. At 10:30 she woke up crying, but only cried for a half our and went back to sleep on her own!! SUCCESS!! I felt like it was magic!!! BUUUUUT, then she woke up at about 2:00am. She cried for about 1.5 hours but fell asleep on her own!!! Then she didn't wake up the right of the night until 7:00, and it wasn't too bad. Wednesday night got even better with only about 1/2 hour of crying once during the night. It just got better from there (during the nights). She started sleeping straight through the night (11 hours) by Friday!! WOOOT WOOOOOT!!! That was awesome, but she still wouldn't nap in her crib!! Although night times were awesome, the week was HOOOOORRIBLE cause she was soooo tired from not napping. On Thursday for her nap, she seriously cried for 2 hours and would NOT fall asleep. I was just watching the monitor and I had to video tape her cause it was SOOOO FUNNY!! Soo sad, but so funny how stubborn she is. Just watch....

This went on for like 10 minutes and she finally fell asleep, but only for 10 MINUTES after all of that!! Can you believe her??? Naughty!!!

Well.... It's been a couple months since we did this, and my life has changed. Ahhhh it's so nice. She finally has a normal bedtime of 8:00 and sleeps until about 7:00.She struggled with her naps for a full month, but now she is taking a good 2 hour nap!!! It only took us a year to get to this point :) LIVE AND LEARN haha.