Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Lila & Sleep...

My happy little beauty and her Poppy!
I love my Dad's face in this picture...LOL!

Last week, while in the midst of another 3:30 am feeding with Lila, I decided it was probably about time to start sleep-training her. It just hadn't hit me until that moment that she should be sleeping through, and is most likely only waking up out of habit (besides a few random nights here and there, she was waking up at least once to eat). With Jack, he started sleeping through the night on his own at 3 months, so sleep-training wasn’t needed (I thought). SO, last friday we decided to attempt the “Cry It Out” method. The first hour of the first night was torture. Lila cried...hard. I cried. Jim gave in and went to get her. She came out with a bright red face and teary eyes, and she looked at me and (I swear to God) smiled…the kind of smile like, “I got my way”. My little girlfriend.
Each night we would rev ourselves up for the meltdown, and each night was a little bit better. Our strategy was to let her cry for 5 minutes, and go in for 1 minute (without picking her up) to soothe her. Then 10 minutes and soothe, 15 minutes and soothe. Saturday night she cried for 40 minutes. Sunday: 20 minutes. Monday: 10 minutes. Tuesday: Not.At.ALL. Not a single cry, whimper, fuss, noise. Just my happy little girl falling to sleep on her own and not waking up once in the night.
She’s sleeping better and waking up happier. She’s on a solid routine. And all of a sudden, life is generally easier. NOW, I may be speaking too soon, it’s all still new, so we’ll see what changes come. But all I know is a sleeping family is a happy family!
PS: Lila's face in this last picture kills me! I love love it!

1 comment:

Laura said...

It's incredible how awesome it works. They totally know how to play games at this age. J was doing the same thing to us. And last night he didn't make a peep for 10 solid hours. The night before....screamed all night. It's just about standing strong and not letting them run the show. You are an awesome mommy :) Good work!