Thursday, March 1, 2012

Sleep training

So bug is doing much better and we took her to her 18month appointment where we learned she had not gained any weight, but is an inch tall than her 15 month appointment.  This isn't that surprising to us as she was just sick for a week and her weight gain has been slow (high metabolism from both mommy and daddy) since the beginning.  She is very healthy however so I am doing that right at least.  Anyways, we discussed her sleeping habits and we both agreed she should be able to put herself to sleep on her own by now.  I had been avoiding this for a long time.  She goes into her toddler bed just fine, but I have to stay in the room until she is asleep.  She then wakes up twice and comes in our room.  The 4am wake up is usually the one where she just ends up with us.  I know this needs to stop.  I was not really comfortable with just having her cry it out, but there has been a lot of crying going on anyways.  I decided that I would peek in on her and let her now I was still there for her.  We talked about it earlier today and then I gave her plenty of reminders the closer it came to bedtime.  At first she was sad but ok as long as I peeked in every few seconds.  Hmm... that's not too much different so I started spacing the time out.  This is when she started freaking out.  Eventually it lead to me having to walk her back to her bed a number of times.  I don't really know what I am doing with all of this stuff, but I do know that she was going to try every excuse in the book to get out of that bed.  It finally took 45 minutes for her to fall asleep on her own.  I think that's pretty good for our first night, except she woke a half hour later and it took another 45 after that.  This time was much different because she was determined to get up any way it took.  First she needed a hug (broke my heart but I told her she had already gotten one), then she bumped her head, then she had to pee (she actually did go), then she wanted a teddy bear, then the baby she picked to bring to bed wasn't the right one, lol, then she wanted her pajamas off, then all of the ice in her sippy cup had melted, then she stubbed her toe, then she needed to see the cat, then she just came out and looked at me because clearly she had run out of ideas and none of them were working.  After many tears, she is finally sleeping in her bed.  I hope tonight is not as hard as I am anticipating.  I will update in the morning if I'm not too tired to function :)