Please, Please Sleep!

So, I want to start this post by first saying that I truly feel lucky and grateful that I have a baby that sleeps through the night (from about 10 pm to 7/8 am). Wes and I have always been grateful for it and didn't take it for granted...well at least I thought we didn't!

That is until this last week. My little cutie has had trouble staying asleep this week. I know it's normal and she's starting to teethe, but seriously, if we weren't so spoiled for so long it wouldn't be this hard! Wes and I are up with her every two hours or so. The good news about these wake ups are that they are just a little fuss and she puts herself back to sleep. Then, at 3 or 4 in the AM she fully wakes up and requires some rocking to be put back out. She is also rolling now so she tries to do it in her sleep....swaddled!! So you KNOW I am constantly waking up to look over to make sure she hasn't rolled over onto her face without arms to push herself up! Boy are we exhausted!!!

We thought it was a blip, but now it's gone on for a week. Wes and I had prided ourselves on being parents that rolled with the punches, worked as a team (a great one if I do say so myself!) and made it work without a ton of outside council. Well now that Liv is getting older, we've decided that doing some actual research and following a plan will be a good thing. Sooooooo, we are instituting our own school of sleep!

Liv was basically not taking naps during the day. She would sleep 10 hours at night and would take 3 to 4 half hour cat naps throughout the day. The problem with these naps were that they required someone to be holding her. When she was a newborn it was awesome. I could and DID hold her all day! But now that she's older, she needs to feel secure in sleeping on her own.

This brings us to Saturday. Wes and I decided to put her in her crib for the first time for a nap. She SCREAMED for 40 minutes straight and wasn't even close to sleep. I couldn't STAND it! It was the worst feeling in the world! I hated every minute. Not even close to a good start. Well, I luckily had a baby shower yesterday with a bunch of girlfriends who have babies. The good news I learned was that I wasn't alone and that most moms have to let their baby cry it out at some point. So that was nice to hear. I'm also hopeful that I should only have to do it for a short period of time before she "gets" it and is a great daytime sleeper.

Well, let me tell you..........it's only the first day of instituting our new system (basically putting her in her crib when she starts to look tired about an hour-hour and a half after she eats) but it's been AMAZING!! I can't tell you how nice it feels to ACTUALLY have an hour or two to myself during the day!!! OMG! It's so freeing! I can actually work on Mondays when I WFH!!

The first two times we did it she fussed for about 10-15 minutes and then put herself to sleep...THANK GOD! She is soundly sleeping as I type this. I am so happy I could cry. Not only is this a great thing, but I'm thinking she'll sleep better through the night again because she'll be getting enough rest during the day. I think she was sooo beyond over tired lately because of the lack of napping.

Anyways, I know this is nothing you moms out there haven't heard or experienced before, but this is a BIG DEAL for us and I want to shout it from the roof tops!

As much as I loved it, this was really the only way she would nap...



Here is a fabulous picture of my beauty sleeping soundly in her crib! Can you believe it? I can't.:)