Sleep training: NIGHT #1

See her little head laying on the side of the crib...poor baby fell asleep standing up

Seconds later she was laying down and ASLEEP!!

Well, we finally broke down and decided to commit to making Kelsie fall asleep on her own in her own crib! Since birth I have held or rocked her to sleep. But that has gotten harder and harder. She has gone through many different phases when it comes to sleep.  She has gone from falling asleep easily in our arms to fighting sleep and back again several times. But for the past 2 weeks, she has fought sleep like a bear and trying to get her to go to sleep for 2 hours every night has gotten really old. I get nothing done that way, plus it is just physically and emotionally exhausting. We knew the day would come that we would likely just need to let her cry in order for her to learn to fall asleep on her own. But for whatever reason, there was always a reason night after night to delay the inevitable. All her issues have made "ignoring" her crying even harder. With the reflux, the brace, the CF - all of it just combined to make it hard for us not to believe that she didn't truly need something when she was crying. But we have finally come to the place where we feel comfortable knowing that her crying at nightime is more of a protest than a need. So last night we decided, "tonight is the night". And we did it. I went through her normal routine and then put her to bed, in her crib, gave her paci and her bunny, kissed her, said goodnight and walked out of the room. She screamed hysterically. But we set the clock and decided to do checks every 7 minutes. After 7 minutes of screaming, I went to her room laid her down, did the same things and told her goodnight. At the 14 minute mark, I went back in and did the same thing. At the 20 minute mark she all of a sudden just stopped crying, laid her head on the crib rails and closed her eyes. Then she would cry out and walk around periodically, but kept laying her head down. So I didn't go up at the 21 minute mark because we knew she was getting close. Then she just laid down and that was all it took. She was asleep! After only 22 minutes of crying. It was hard to listen to her cry for that long but it really wasn't as bad as we thought. We were expecting hours of crying and were shocked that it only took 22 minutes! Lets hope tonight is even better! Way to go Kelsie!!