Changes

There has been a lot going on around here. The first thing is sort of a controversial topic. We have been doing Cry It Out with Jayden. I never thought I would be one of the moms trying this, but after 5 1/2 months of the sleep issues we have been having with tiny, I changed my mind! First I will tell you about when we tried this at 4 months. Her pedi had recommended this to me and at first I was really mad and against it, but I thought I should at least try. It was a disaster to say the least. We let her cry for 1 hour, it was so hard for me. She never calmed down, and when we went in to get her she was covered in sweat and throw up. I scooped her up and held her and cried while she sat there looking around completely fine.

Fast forward a month and a half and it brings us to Sunday night. She has been swaddled since birth, but she had learned how to roll over in her swaddle and ended up face down one night and couldn't turn back over. So I decided to go cold turkey with the swaddle. I spent a few nights with her sleeping with me and it was not working. I read that someone had tried again at 5 1/2 months and it was a success. I decided we were going to do this again. I was at the end of my rope.

Instead of just letting her cry we decided to do checks. We put her to bed and left the room. After 5 minutes of crying I went in and stroked her cheek and said "I love you and you are doing a great job" and then after 10 min, and 15 and so on. It was rough at first, I almost gave up. The night wakings were the worst. one night she was up from 12:25-3:45 and then 4:15-5:00 and then up for the day at 6:50. After that night I called my husband at work and asked him to take the next day off. I just needed help. We put her down like we had the 3 nights before and I was dreading it big time. But it turned out so great. She woke up a few times, but after a minute or two of whining she put herself back to sleep. I fed her once at 4:30 then she slept till 7:30! 12 hours!!! And last night it went about the same!

She is able to put herself to sleep all the time, and for naps she sometimes doesn't cry at all. She does have some harder times but overall I could not be happier that we did this! And to make it even better, my little monkey is so much happier now, it's amazing what sleep can do for the both of us.

Another change would be our solid food journey. I have been making her food here at home and she is loving it. I will write more about that later.