Sleep

So, you know what I think the hardest part of having a baby is, you know, after they are here? Sleep. Not breastfeeding or discipline or diaper changing or baths or crying, but sleep. Because, really, sleep factors into some of those things. Sleep is also one of those controversial, judge other parents, type of things. Do you let your child cry it out at night, do you co sleep, do you use a monitor, do you do scheduled naps, do you have a structured bedtime and what time is it???????

Not to toot my own horn, but in general, Matt and I are pretty good at parenting. We have an appropriate amount of structure and discipline, without being crazy. Our girls are well behaved, eat well, and so on. But, we struggle with babies and sleep. I say babies because now that Abby isn't a baby, it is a non-issue. -and I expect that will happen eventually with Lily too.

BUT, now, it is a problem. Lily has been a pretty easy baby, and as a newborn, was a good sleeper. We'd put her to bed drowsy and she'd fall asleep like a champ. She started sleeping through the night around 2 months. It has all gone downhill from there.

Here is our situation: Lily gets a bottle before bed and falls asleep in our arms. We then move her into her crib. She then sleeps there for anywhere to 1 to 5 hours. At that point, the struggle begins. She does not want to go back to sleep by herself. We have tried letting her cry it out, which only results in a hysterical baby. I don't know, maybe others let them cry for, literally, hours? But, that hasn't worked for us. We try rocking her and then moving her back to her crib, but 9 out of 10 times she wakes and cries more. We then resort to bringing her into bed with us, where she calmly snuggles in and sleeps until about 7:30.

We do not want her in bed with us, but we also aren't very good with the battle in the middle of the night. We had a very calm discussion about it this week, and we are both struggling with what to do. We DO think it will pass eventually because we did go through this with Abby, except she wasn't as bad as Lily. You just can't rationalize with a ten month old. So, I am working on some small things...

• More structured nap time- in her crib. I wasn't doing this. She was napping on our bed or in my arms, on the couch... when she happened to fall asleep. For the last 3 days, I have put her down in her crib at specific times (AM and PM) for nap.
• Make her crib less scary. Not that it was, but I took down the bumper pad, so she can see her room and not feel "alone." For naps lately, I put her down and then read or work on something in her rocker and she's okay with that. If I leave the room, she freaks out. Then, once she drifts off to dreamland, I scoot. I also have set her in her crib with a couple toys when we are in there working. Yesterday she played in her crib while Abby and I cleaned out some of her drawers.
• Make her crib snuggly warm. She is old enough now that she can have a warm blanket. The temps here have finally dropped to crazy cold, and I have given her a snuggly blanket to sleep with. My thought is that at least she isn't waking up because she's cold (just in case that could have been a problem before- can you tell I'm grasping at straws?!).

We are on day 3 of structured naps in her crib, and it is going well. I'm actually pretty proud of myself. -and look! It doesn't look like a torturous time, does it? Now, why can't I get her to think that at night????