Battle Sleep

Yes, That's right I am blogging about sleep AGAIN!! I know what you must be thinking, aren't you getting any yet?? Well we are getting closer. Much much closer. After a rough week the week before labor day Mike and I decided it was time to crack down and be tough. So Monday night when we got home from the lake we decided on some rules or guidelines...

We have figured out that she is really nursing just out of habit/comfort from all her days with her ear infections. So we decided to start a bedtime closer to 7ish (and 7:15 seems to be the best time).


1. Start and keep a bed time routine: Eating, Bath, Change into PJ's, Play time, story time, Nursing and down to sleep.

2. We are letting her cry for 10 minutes or so before going into the room. When going into the room, we check diaper, temperature and make sure she is okay and put her back down, and repeat. If she stops crying for more than 5 minutes then it starts over again.
3. We decided to try not feeding her when/if she woke up before midnight.
4. If we fed her during the night, we wouldn't feed her before 3 hours after the previous feeding.

So far after 5 days its working pretty well.

Night 1: Went down, she was pretty tired. She woke up at 10:30 and cried for about 15 minutes or so and then was down until 1:30 or so. Then up at 4:30 and 6:30 for the day - so not bad for the first night.
Night 2: Went down, cried for a bit - had to go back in 2 times to get her down, but she went down finally. Woke up at 10:30 again but put herself to sleep :) Then again around 1:30 or 2:30 and 4:30.
Night 3: Went down easily for Mike with a bottle (I was out for the night) and never woke up at 10:30 (YEAH Small victory). She followed the same schedule.
Night 4: Went down great, woke up at 11:00 cried on and off for an hour and I finally fed her at midnight. We then were up about 3 hours later and again the same thing.
Night 5: Fell asleep and slept until 2:30. We decided since the rest of the week had gone well that we would put her down and not feed her at 2:30 - the previous nights she was only eating for 5 minutes or so. I changed her diaper and put her back in her crib and she slept another 2 hours. I fed her at 4:30 and she was up around 7. It was a great night!

So tonight we are going to try the same thing that we did the other night and not feed her at 2:30 so we will see how it goes. She is eating way more solids now - today I only nursed her a few times. So Battle Sleep continues but we are definitely making progress.