Tuesday's Unwrapped - Sleeping

As I have wrote on here before sleep has been a struggle for us. When she was first born we thought we had a great sleeper and don't get me wrong she is s great sleeper at times. When she was an itty bitty she slept in her pack n play and would get up about every 2 to 3 hours.

When she was 2 months old we started to have trouble getting her to sleep anywhere but on us or in her swing. I have to admit the swing was awesome. She was STTN. From 11 to 7 every night for a month. Then slowly that stopped and we ended up moving her to her carseat. I thought for sure my kid was going to be going to college sleeping in a carseat.

A lot of our struggle with that was because she had an ear infection for 6 weeks. And it's hard to lay down with that. But eventually around month 7 we got her sleeping in get crib again. Gabby always did great going down, we NEVER had an issue putting her down once we did get her sleeping in her crib. Our struggle used to be getting her to stay asleep (and it still is partially that problem as well).

I have read many of the books, Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child, Happiest Baby on the Block, The Baby Whisperer and I think a few others. We figured it out that CIO (Cry It Out) completely doesn't work for us, so that leaves out Health Sleep Habits Happy Child....and most of the books while we tried things, the methods just didn't completely work.

So I call this the Epp Family Sleep Method. I have decided that nursing her to sleep is okay, I don't have to change that, they do that at Daycare with a bottle and she does just fine with sleeping. We will keep doing our routine at night so she knows that she its time to sleep. But I have decided to try to cut out some of her comfort nursing. I think that will help us all get some sleep. We might have a few rough nights, but it will be worth it.

Sunday I started this - I know what you are thinking, am I crazy! what am I doing starting something like this on a Sunday, but I needed to.
Here was our schedule:
Bedtime - 8:00pm - We were out with my SIL, BIL & Niece at the zoo.
She slept until 10:15pm
1:30am - Finally fell back asleep (see below)
4:00am - Woke up to feed
5:00am - Woke up - I fed her, only because I didn't realize what time it was and was so exhausted.
7:15 - Woke her up to send her to daycare for Breakfast.

The few hours between 10:30 and 1:30 we fought back and forth about her going to sleep. The first hour was probably the worst, she screamed and screamed and I didn't think I could do it. I was in the room with her the entire time, she just wasn't understanding why I wasn't picking her up. I would ONLY pick her up if she sat up or stood up and cried in her crib, otherwise I just soothed her with singing and rubbing her back etc. I did finally end up taking her out of the crib and rocking her, but she was screaming even when I was doing that, we eventually got her calmed down and I put her down in her crib again. She did this thing where she would lay down, and start to fall asleep, and then 2 minutes later wake up screaming. Lay back down and repeat. Sometimes she would sit up and I would lay her back down with her lovey and her blanket.

Eventually we both fell asleep. I slept on her floor until 4am and then fed her, changed her and went into my own bed.

Night two was much better. We put her to bed (nursing her to sleep after a bath) around 7:15 or so, she woke up when some of our friends left but I just laid her back down and gave her lovey and she went right to sleep until 1:30am. It was a great night sleep. She then slept until 5am and I fed her both times. Right now I plan on just taking out one of her night feedings (the earlier one) and we will see how it goes...Stayed tuned for future Tuesday's Unwrapped and I will keep you all posted on our progress.