Our Sleeping Through the Night Strategy, or lack thereof.

Since I mentioned that Adelyn slept through the night sans-Nap Nanny, two things have happened. One, she woke up for an hour last night to eat, so, again my theory that as soon as I brag about sleep it always comes back to my bite me in the ass, and, two, I learned a lot about Adelyn and the little person she's becoming.

We didn't really do anything definite, no concrete strategy. I followed some lovely readers' suggestions and looked into different techniques and routines, but as usual I got bored or frustrated and just stuck to what we were doing before. Which is a whole lot of whatever sort of felt right at the moment, be it letting her cry for a few minutes or rushing to comfort her. We had a basic rule--for the general fussing right after she's put down, and the generic "someone come entertaaaain me" middle of the night freak-out, we tried to wait ten minutes before intervening. And then we'd go in her room, rub her back, shush her, pick her up if the freak-out had reached inconsolability, and then we'd crawl back in bed and do this until it worked. Every ten minutes.

I think the main thing that changed as far as "sleep training" versus what we were doing before, back when we depended on the ultra-comfy Nap Nanny to do our nighttime parenting for us, is that we stopped rushing to Adelyn's side the second she woke up. Because before I did this, this overbearing, overreactive first-time-mom kind of thing. It's a strength and a weakness of my parenting. I worry too much about everything. We never let her full-on cry it out, but we slowly got our message across that unless something has gone wrong or she's truly scared or hungry, night time is for sleeping, period. And mommy and daddy are here to help but we are here to help you learn to sleep. I realized that most of the nighttime fits weren't due to anything but simple frustration. Frustration that her sleep crutch was gone, that something had changed and she had no say in it. And parents can help with the hunger, the soothing, the big and small fixes necessary throughout babyhood and life. But dealing with simple frustration--that's a personal battle, one that I see Adelyn conquering more and more each day.

Jason and I really leaned on each other, too. And for the millionth time I commend every single parent out there, because I don't know if I could do it. Not with an ounce of sanity intact, anyway. Jason and I took shifts, and we stuck to them. We alternated if one of us had to get up really early in the morning for something, and we picked up each other's slack if one of us really needed an extra hour or two. Jason is the most amazing father and parenting partner I could ever dream up. I'm lucky. (So is Adelyn.)

It took a week of us not rushing to her side for the message to sink in, and then the nighttime wakings went from three times, to two, to one, then she was just up for a quick bottle, and then for three nights in a row she slept straight through, for twelve glorious hours. And then last night teething reared its ugly, sleep-depriving head, and Highlands Teething Tablets saved the day. Er, night.

I'm not going to say our sleep troubles are over. Because they never are, I think. I learned my lesson about that a few months ago, after our three-month-marathon of sleeping through the night every single night without exception came to a screeching halt. There will be another battle to face. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow.

But one thing's for sure--Adelyn has learned to sleep without her Nap Nanny. And all it took was a little sleep training on her part--and mostly mine--that she would be okay without me magically appearing by her side every time she got a little frustrated.

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Progress, there and back.

Today, for the first time, Addy opened her mouth and let the food in. So far introducing solids has been a losing battle, for the poor food splattered and wasted all over the three of us and the living room, for me, who usually gets frustrated after ten minutes of forced-feeding and gives up, and for Addy, the reigning queen of the household, who never gets angrier than when she's doing something she doesn't want to do.

But today, her mouth opened to welcome the spoonful of mushed bananas, and almost half of the food made it into her mouth.

Progress.

And while one part of her baby story moves forward, another takes a giant step back.

I've only dabbled in sleep-training research up until this point, because we never really needed it. We'd have bad nights where I'd find myself googling MAKE MY BABY SLEEP at three a.m., and also nights like the one when I made an impulse purchase of The No Cry Sleep Solution on Amazon. But for the most part Adelyn's sleep would regulate itself before I had a chance to get too involved. (I read two chapters of that book before I put it down for something non-baby related.) Sometimes all the baby literature is just too much for me. The theories, the schedules, the opinions--the heated opinions. I don't want to follow a regimen. I don't have the energy to document every second of Adelyn's schedule for the professionals at Baby Center to consult. I don't have the strength to listen to Adelyn cry for long without doing something. Letting your baby cry until they finally fall asleep, without any intervention, is called "extinction." "Extinction crying."

No. No, and no. Nothing involving the word "extinction"--no matter how well some people swear it works--will be used in this house. (I'm not knocking anyone who does this, by the way. If there's one thing I've learned it's that every baby is different, and every mother is different, and not one is better than the other. But seriously, couldn't some pr-brained person find a better way to market the method than "extinction?")

We took the Nap Nanny away on Monday. Cold turkey. Comfy footed sleepers, beloved Sleep Sheep white noise maker, cuddling, lavender massage, vigorous bedtime guitar playing, lights out.

Jason and I approached it like preparing for battle. In shifts. One of us downstairs, one of us upstairs in bed, so that at least one of us was getting a chunk of sleep.

On Monday we put her to bed at 7:30. We took turns going in her room and comforting her at ten minute intervals, only picking her up when the crying turned into screams. We did this until about midnight (and, yes, she cried off and on for that long). Then I went to sleep, and Jason stood guard until three. When the alarm went off they were both asleep. I woke Jason up so he could go get in bed, and he told me she had never fallen asleep. He fed her, comforted her at least every ten minutes, picked her up, soothed her, sang to her, loved her.

She stayed asleep until five in the morning, and after a quick bottle slept for another twenty minutes.

Last night was a slight improvement. After about thirty minutes of comforted crying (going in the room every ten minutes), she slept until one. Then all it took was a few pats on the stomach and she slept again until four, then a quick fuss and up for the day at five.

We put her to bed fifteen minutes ago and she hasn't fallen asleep yet. I'm not sure if this post makes any sense at all, because my whole body is wrapped up in the sound of her crying over the monitor. I've already interrupted writing this twice to go upstairs and calm her down. And I haven't slept more than five hours since the Nap Nanny--the evil, evil, evil Nap Nanny--was recalled Monday morning.

Adelyn sleeps so much better on her stomach. I've been letting her do this for naps, when she's monitored, because she falls asleep with ease and wakes up happy. But I'm too scared to do it at night, when Jason and I are snoring and my maternal alarm is momentarily turned off. I even called Adelyn's doctor today to ask for her opinion, and she agreed: no nighttime sleeping on the stomach until she rolls into that position herself.

For now, I think I'll take a big swig out of my glass of wine. And maybe give The No Cry Sleep Solution another read, while I sit in a bubble bath and take a few more swigs.

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