Sleep training: day 1

Last night was our first night of 'teaching' Rea to sleep in her crib. We were planning on waiting until after the baptism weekend but she has been increasingly fussy and resistant to bed time lately (even while being held which is the only way she will go to bed without screaming her head off). Craig tried putting her to bed last night and she would not settle down, even in his arms. If she is in need of nothing but sleep, yet still cries while being held, it is real easy to decide to let her cry. But leaving her to cry herself to sleep is INCREDIBLY hard. The thing is, if we leave her for 10, 20 or even 30 mins crying but then go to her she just learns that she has to keep crying and eventually mom will come get her. And then it is that much harder for all of us next time we try and put her down. But what if she really does need something? So hard!

I went to her last night after 30 minutes and discovered that she did infact need something, she had pooped. I changed her and tried soothing her but she was so PO'ed that she kept crying. So I kissed her and but her back to bed. She continued to scream; total crying time: 1hr 35 minutes. She then slept for an hour and woke up crying. I let her cry for a few minutes to see is she would settle back down but then went to see is she needed something and sure enough she had pooped again. I changed her, offered her milk, soothed and then put her down. Immediately she started screaming; I headed downstairs to pump off the rest of my milk, and low and behold, she fell asleep after only a minute or two of crying! What a relief! She woke up once, kicked her legs and wiggled for a while but did not cry and fell back to sleep. After that she woke up 2x to eat and went back to bed in her crib with very little resistance. Success!! It sure makes the crying worth it to know that she is going to sleep so much better in her crib once she gets use to it.

I wasn't committed to trying the crib vs the swing for naps today because I feel that it is more important that she naps well during the day, and is put down in her crib at night. But I definitely wanted to try. I soothed her and put her down sleepy, she did not cry immediately but then started up. She only cried hard for a few minutes, then fussed a little, and is now asleep! Yeah! Hopefully she will stay down, for a good long nap (her morning nap is the longest, usually 3-4hrs) in her crib.

I expect a good amount of "resistance" crying (as Dr. Weissbluth would say) again tonight but I think we are on the right track. I am so anixous to get the worst of it over. It is crazy how hard this is even though I know it is super important and is in her best interest.