Crying It Out

Doesn't this sound like an awesome blog post? I bet you are really excited to read this beast, especially if you don't have kids!

Anyways, in my last post I mentioned that Kensie is now sleeping 8-10 hours straight. Let me assure you that she didn't simply start sleeping through the night.

I started implementing the book "Baby Wise" at about eight weeks with Kensie. Overall I really like the book. The eat/wake/sleep cycle helped Kensie a lot. Falling asleep on her own for naps and nighttime were really hit and miss. After two months of following "Baby Wise", Kensie STILL wasn't sleeping through the night and I got really frustrated. I kept thinking my baby was just one of the four percent or whatever of babies who take longer to settle into a normal routine. Kensie's problem was STAYING asleep.

We hadn't done 'cry it out' in the night up until that point because she had really bad gas and then she was sick. Plus, who wants to listen to your baby cry in the middle of the night when you are trying to get some sleep? It was easier to just pop the binky back in her mouth...until it kept getting worse and worse. As the nighttime crying became more frequent, I grew increasingly more frustrated. It was time to do something differently. Niel was out of the country and my parents were visiting. After a pep talk from my mom I realized this was an opportune time to let her cry it out.

So here is roughly how it went. It is all somewhat of a blur, but here is what I can remember.

First night: Woke up at 12:00 a.m. She cried until 2:15 a.m. That is two hours and 15 minutes people!!!! And she was STILL going strong! No sign of backing down whatsoever. Can you say STUBBORN?!?! I was exhausted, couldn't take the crying anymore, and went into her room. I popped the binky in her mouth and left. I figured all of that crying was for nothing since I ended up going in after all. I can't really remember the rest of the night. I do remember that it was better than normal and she woke up less and cried an hour to an hour and a half when she woke up.

Second night: Woke up thirty minutes after I put her to bed and cried for an hour and a half. Then she slept from 10:30p.m. to 4:30 a.m--HUGE improvement!!!

Third night: Woke up thirty minutes after I put her to bed and cried for an hour. Then she slept from 10:30 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. again! This is serious progress.

So on, and so on.

It has been a process and we have had to be very consistent because we have one stubborn little girl on our hands (no idea where she gets that from). She improved a lot after the first four days but would sometimes wake up several times a night and cry for 5-30 minutes at a time.

After a month of doing crying it out she still wakes up sometimes but for the most part she sticks to the following new and improved sleeping schedule:

She goes to sleep between 7 and 7:30 p.m. and sleeps until 4-5:30 a.m. She chows down on some milk and then goes back to bed until 7-8 a.m!!!

I completely underestimated how hard it would be to sleep train our little girl. It's OK Kensie, we still love you.

My life just got a whole lot better this month! I mean, I actually feel like a normal, functioning person again because I have been getting some sleep! I even have ENERGY now. I've been cooking, cleaning, decorating, shopping, doing home projects, etc. I'm not getting my eight hours of sleep like I did before I became a mom, but I am getting a lot more sleep than I have in months...and let me tell you...it feels good.