Sleep!

This post is purely to brag about Olivia and her AMAZING birthday present to me --starting to sleep through the night!

Her sleep patterns over the past few months had really gone from bad to worse.  At three months, she was sleeping pretty well except she would lose her pacifier all the time, so it was a constant dance all night to go in and replace it.  At about four months, she started having random crying fits where she would need to be held and rocked back to sleep & she also started wanting to eat again every 3 hours in the middle of the night.  By the last few weeks, she could barely even sleep without being rocked.  I'm pretty sure Matt and I slept more in the glider in her room than in our bed over the last 2 weeks.

Our pediatrician said it was because we were still swaddling her (despite her telling us to stop at Olivia's 4 month check up).  (Don't think we're terrible parents - we had tried not swaddling her last month, but she worked herself into such mess that she couldn't calm back down to go to sleep.  And we really couldn't bear to hear her cry that much!).

Matt and I had been wanting to "Ferberize" her soon anyways, so we decided now was as good a time as any.  So on Wednesday (Leap Day) we put her to bed - sans swaddle and sans paci.  She looked at us like we were crazy as she opened her mouth for us to put the paci in.  But, undeterred by her protests and crying, we kissed her, rubbed her head and left the room.

I poured myself a glass of wine, got Matt a beer and we ordered a pizza.  We thought we were in for a long night of crying. 3 minutes of crying....I went in to check on her....5 more minutes....Matt went in....10 more minutes....I went in again.....and then....nothing.....she put herself to sleep!!!  I hadn't even finished my glass of wine and the pizza hadn't arrived yet.  25 minutes!

That night was a little rough because she woke up about every 1-2 hours and would cry for 3-10 minutes.  Then on Thursday she took only 1 nap for 10 minutes.  But, by Thursday night I guess she got the hang of it because she slept from 7:00 pm until 7:00 am!  She woke up one time at 3:45 to eat and, honestly, both Matt and I were glad to hear her awake and crying.  It freaked us out that she slept so well that night!  To the point that we actually went in and put our hand on her chest about 2 am to make sure she was still breathing!

Her naps on Friday were much better and at night she followed the same routine - slept until about 3:45 and then woke up to eat.

I hope I'm not jinxing anything and I'm sure there will be a few setbacks, but these past two nights have been amazing and we are SO happy and proud of our little bundle and her new nighttime routine!