Sleep Training - Night 1

First - thank you everyone for your comments and encouragement.  This sleeping problem started almost 2 months ago because she was teething.  It has continued, and gotten to the point where she is awake every 2 hours, and it was taking me up to an hour to get her back to sleep.  It really has just become a habit of hers to have daddy or mommy hold her until she sleeps, so she doesn't know what to do when she wakes in the middle of the night.  We are setting up a better bedtime routine, as well as making sure she is getting enough to eat during the day, and just before bedtime.

The First Night- Lots of Tears, Lots of Cuddles - and it wasn't just Kiera.

It was h e double hockey sticks.  It is so hard to listen to baby girl cry, and not rush to her side to comfort her.  At 8:30 pm, she was rubbing her eyese and cuddling, so I decided it was time to start the process.  As soon as I put her in her crib, the crying started.  Luckily, I only have to wait 3 mintues before I comfort her.  How hard can that be?  It was 3 very long minutes.  Daddy took the first turn to comfort her.

He managed to quiet her down (though he took longer than the 2 minutes allowed).  Yay, it worked already.  Man, our child is brillant.  Opps, nope.  As soon as he closed the door, she starts crying again.  This time we ahve to wait 5 minutes before we can go back in.  This time, it's my turn.

I go in, rub her forehead, talk to her.  Then she looks at me with these pleading eyes and she is crying so hard she was hyperventalating.  All I here is "Please mommy, pick me up!"  I couldn't take it, so I pick her up and cuddle her in the rocking chair.  As I rocked her, my tears started.  The first of many.  Mike caught me, and reminded me we aren't supposed to hold her if we want this to work.  At that point, we decided I just wasn't going to be able to do this.  I know that this is for the best in the long run.  We are teaching her how to put herself to sleep, but hearing her was hard enough. 

Afgter 2 more trips to her room, she finally fell asleep at 9:15 pm.  It only took 45 minutes.  Wait a sec, it only took 45 minutes?  It felt like hours.  Of course, this was just the beginning of the night.

She woke at about 10:30 pm as we were going to bed ourselves.  It only took Mike 2 trips to get her to go back to sleep.  In between, he cuddle me as I cried.  She woke again at 2:00 am, but she fell back to sleep on her own after crying for about 5 minutes.  And again, more tears from me.  Poor Mike.

She slept until 8:00 am.  Well that wasn't so hard.  She will be good tonight, right.  Right?