Sleep Training

As you have heard me complain about for, Violet is notoriously a TERRIBLE sleeper.  I tried and tried and read and read and NOTHING worked.  She finally mastered the nap at about 10 months.  2 two hour naps a day usually.  When she first started doing it I was in shock, I didn't even know what to do with myself!  I was used to two or three 20 minute naps.  So, at about 11 months Violet's night time sleep habits became even worse.  (I thought they were already at the ultimate low).  She went from waking every hour or two a night to waking every 20-30 minutes a night.  And I mean EVERY night.  I would go in, nurse her and put her back down.  By the time I laid back down I had about 10 minutes to rest before I got up again.  From 11 to almost 12 months I got aprox. 2 hours (not in row) of sleep a night.  A couple more weeks of that I honestly think I would have needed to check into the hospital for exhaustion and mental health.  I am not kidding.

I like to be honest on my blog and not hold things back.  That little amount of sleep and not to mention she would wake up around 5:30am for the day was bringing me into depression.  I was beyond grumpy, I couldn't think, I didn't want to do anything including brushing my teeth.  I would get terrible anxiety attacks when bed time neared and I would hold back tears every time I had to get up.  It was eating me alive. 

So, I decided enough was enough.  I understood this whole thing was partially my fault.  I was enabling her by going in there and feeding her every time.  It was just hard to ignore her cries because her room is  feet from ours.  A week before her birthday I began sleeping on an air mattress in our downstairs office.  I turned a sleep sounds website on my computer and cranked it up.  And that is where i slept for a little over a week.  Down there I can't hear her cry at all.  Justin can sleep through it so he stayed in our room.  According to him she cried many times the first night but never for over 15 minutes.  Each night after she cried less and less.  In about 4 or 5 days she was sleeping through the night.  Not only had we sleep trained her with little pain for all of us, I had also weaned her night feedings.  I had also took away her two day time feedings when I started sleeping downstairs too.  After she had slept through the night for a few nights I took away the before bed feeding as well (the day before her bday). 

In conclusion, I finally have a happy healthy little girl who sleeps through the night and actually wakes up happy in the morning.  She does still cry sometimes but I don't go in there anymore and it usually only lasts about 3 minutes or less.  And now she sleeps in till atleast 6, 7 if I'm lucky!  And I am no longer breast feeding which is awesome as well.  I was pretty scared to quit but she took it like a champ.  So folks, if your in the same boat as me, keep trying diff. things.  Crying it out doesn't work for everyone but it sure worked for us.  (Next baby I will be implementing this much sooner!)