My Sleeping Beauty

If you've been around my blog for a while then you know how hard of a time we had with Boogie when it came to naps and sleeping. I was adamant from the beginning that we would never allow her to cry it out or leave her if she needed comfort. I guess you could say we practice attachment parenting in that, and really many other aspects of parenting. You read everywhere how children will never learn to self soothe if you don't let them CIO, well I'm here to say that I have proven those naysayers WRONG. We have always comforted Boogie, held her, rocked her, nursed her, loved on her, sat with her... did whatever we could to ensure that she knew we were there for her as she fell asleep. My daughter turned 2 a few weeks ago and she is officially putting herself to sleep without us in the room with her. She does whine and sometimes pitches a fit (mainly during naptime), but she doesn't cry out of discomfort or fear. She lays down, squeezes her Ocean Wonders Soothe and Glow Seahorse so that it lights up and plays music, pulls her blanket up to her chin and lays there until she falls asleep. Granted, there are evenings when she is ornery and sneaks out of bed to play, or sits up in her bed saying, "Mommy. Daddy. Mommy. Daddy. Water? Hungry!" She's figured out how to stretch her awake time as long as possible, but lucky for us we're just a wee bit smarter, lol. On average it takes her about 15-20 minutes to fall asleep. So there. I'm sticking my tongue out at all of these professionals who swear up and down that CIO is the only way to go. We do sit with her or hold her when she is genuinely upset, like last week when she wasn't feeling well. But other than that kind of instance, she's on her own. My independent 2 year old. How did that happen?

Sleeeeep

Well, it seems like every other night Boogie has a good night... and then a bad one. Last night wasn't too bad actually. She went down a little early because she hasn't been napping well (thanks to our wonderful LOUD neighbors), so she was asleep by 7... woke up twice between then and 10 but J got her back to sleep fairly quickly both times. Then she didn't wake up until 1:45! And then she woke up at 3:30 and we didn't get her back to sleep until almost 4:15. J finally got her back to sleep for me and she slept til almost 6. I was too tired to fight with her so we just went and laid on the couch and slept til 8. Overall a good night... especially compared to the night before when she was up every few hours!

Like I mentioned in a previous post, tomorrow is Boogie's 10 month birthday! I still haven't completely decided what I want to do for her 10 month photos... obviously some will have something to do with Halloween, but other than that I'm not sure what we're doing! Anyways... just wanted to update a little on Boogie's sleep training. :)

Operation I Want My Bed Back... Night 2

Night 2 sucked to be frank. But before we get to that, let's talk about our first napping experience with the crib. yesterday was our first time getting Boogie to nap in her crib. I was really afraid she'd fight me and not sleep at all, and since she slept in until 11 that morning I planned on putting her down for one nap. She went down like a breeze... it was AMAZING. I nursed her at 3:10pm, she was down by 3:20pm and didn't wake up until 4:30pm. Not the longest nap in the world, but it was a whole hour of ME time. Spectacular!



Now... bedtime was not so spectacular. Here are the details:



7pm - started our bedtime routine (bath, pjs, books, nurse...)
8:10pm - got her in her crib
8:45pm - she woke up....
8:48pm - went back down relatively quickly
9:30pm - awake AGAIN
9:31pm - went back asleep with just a few pats
10:40pm - and awake again
10:45pm - again, went to sleep with a little patting and head rubbing
11:40pm - and again... awake
12:09am - fell asleep after some rocking and bouncing
2:15am - slept about 2 hours, so we thought hey, maybe she'll sleep a little longer next time...
3:36am - or not.... at this point she is STILL awake, so I nurse her thinking maybe she's hungry?
3:44am - she leaked on me from the constant tushie patting, so she got a diaper change
4am - 2 hours later, she's asleep. Ay yi yi.
5:55am - awake again, so I tell J to just bring her to bed. We're all exhausted.
6:05am - after biting me and not going to sleep... back to her bedroom we go
7am - for the past hour I left J and Boogie to get some rest. I was in and out of consciousness because Boogie cried the entire time... poor J :( So after all that, we bring her back to our bed again, I nurse her, and we all pass out.
10:15am - wake up super exhausted and hoping tonight is a better night.



So yea. Last night was ROUGH. Naptime was good though, she went down at 1:20pm and slept until 2:25! And tonight she was up twice between 7:30pm and 8:45pm, but she's been down since 9pm and it's not 11pm... so I'm hopeful for a better night!

Operation I Want My Bed Back

Yep... Operating I Want My Bed Back is under way! Last night was our first night getting Boogie to sleep in her own bed and in her own room. I've been fighting with myself as to whether or not this was the right time to do this or not. Boogie is 9 months old now and while I LOVE cuddling with her, she takes up SO much room in our bed, and she had started nursing ALL night long. The night before last I felt overwhelming peace that this decision was right, that not only Boogie was ready but I was ready to let my baby girl grow up. It's hard... because you don't want your children to get big, but it has to happen. I prayed and prayed about whether what I was choosing to do was healthy and good for Boogie, and I think my Father approved! So this is how it went...

7:00pm: J gave Boogie her bath, put on her nighttime dipe and pj's, read her her books, and then I nursed her and rocked her.
7:20pm: I laid her down, and she DIDN'T WAKE UP. I was shocked! I didn't have to fight with her at all!
8:20pm: An hour later she woke up, she was a little upset but nothing too serious in the beginning. After about 30 minutes of her trying to stand up, fussing, and us laying her back down, she got so upset that (as in real crying, and not fake crying) that I picked her up, rocked her and nursed her until she went back to sleep. She woke up when I laid her down, but once J started rubbing her head and I started singing "You Are My Sunshine" to her, she was out!
9:15: This is what time she went back to sleep.
11:30pm: She woke up fussing, so nothing to serious. I just went in and patted her for about 5 minutes and she got very upset. So I picked her up and just held her and she immediately went back to sleep. I laid her back down and she was out.
11:40pm: Asleep
1:20am: Woke up just like before, went through the same routine.
1:34am: Asleep
This is where it gets rough.
3:10am: She woke up very upset, so I picked her up and did the same rocking/bouncing routine as before. She immediately fell asleep.
3:12am: Asleep in crib
3:15am: As soon as I got comfy in my bed, she was super upset again. So I repeated the steps I did before.
3:17am: Asleep in crib.
4:15am: Fussed and fussed... then started laughing and cooing so I sat in my rocking chair for about 20 minutes while she did this and laid her back down every time she sat up or stood up. After that I went and laid down and just listened to her babble hoping she would go back down.
4:45am: She started getting upset, so I went and patted her belly and sang to her, but nothing helped. At about 5am I took her out, rocked her and nursed her for about 5 minutes and laid her back down.
5:10am: Asleep in crib
6:15am: By this point, I'm exhausted... Boogie woke up crying real tears and no matter what I did she wouldn't go down. I rocked her, patted her, bounced her... nothing. So fighting tears myself, I took her back to bed and nursed her and we both slept until 11:15am

So. There you go. Wasn't a horrible night, it was exhausting, but better than I thought it would be. I hope to not have to bring her to bed every morning like that... but for the time being and for my own sanity that's what I'm doing until she sleeps a little better at night. Since we woke up so late, I'm going to just get her down for 1 nap, hopefully in her crib.. .and then we'll repeat our night time routine with J and he will be able to help over night this weekend since he's off!

If you want more info on this type of sleeping training, it's a type of Non-CIO training I found in The No Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep by Elizabeth Pantley combined with some tips on a sleeping board on babycenter. Here's a link to the post I used: How to Sleep Train Without CIO