Mother May I

Remember that blog I posted, The No Cry Sleep Solution? Yeah, we can throw that one out the window. There has been a lot of changes going on lately. These are changes that needed to happen and they have made things so much better! I knew we had to do something when I picked up Lilly from daycare one day last week. I usually talk to her all the way home. That day I didn't say a word. I was so exhausted from the night before. I couldn't even find the energy to ask her how her day was. I needed sleep. That realization slapped me in the face so hard that I'm pretty sure my grandma felt it.

My last post stated that we were going to start keeping Lilly in her crib and letting her learn how to soothe herself back to sleep. Co-sleeping was not working for us anymore because Lilly was waking up multiple times a night and wanting to nurse back to sleep, just for comfort. I emailed my sister-in-law and asked for advice. She told me exactly what they did with Cole and how much it has helped. Jenn said something that really hit home. She said that when they decided to let Cole learn how to self soothe it was like she needed permission from somebody. In her case it was her sister-in-law that walked her through it. This was so true for me. I felt like I needed permission to do what we were about to do. Jenn granted me that permission.

Night one- Last Sunday was our first attempt at keeping Lilly in her crib. I nursed her until she was almost asleep and laid her down. She immediately started crying. Crap. I took a nice long shower and Mike stood over Lilly and rubbed her. When I got out of the shower she was still fussing. Crap. We turned on the baby monitor and left the room. She stopped crying a few minutes later. We survived. Lilly wasn't even crying real tears. It was more of a "I'm so mad at you" cry. Lilly woke up 3 times that night. I nursed her once. But all I had to do the other times were reach my hand through the crib and rub her and she would go right back to sleep. I knew in the morning that Lilly would hate me. I was so worried that she would be in a bad mood but the complete opposite happened. Lilly was the happiest she had been in a long time in the morning! This showed us that she had slept much better in her crib!

Night two- Mike had a meeting Monday night so bedtime was all on me. Crap. I just knew she was going to cry and cry and I was going to cave in. I nursed her and laid her down and waited for the world to end BUT she fell right asleep. No crying. No tears. IT WAS A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!! She woke up twice that night and went right back to sleep with no issues. I have never slept so good in my whole life. I felt like a brand new person.

Night 3- Lilly slept until 3:45am people! This was almost an 8 hour stretch. I nursed her and she went right back to sleep. Amazing.

Every night has continued to be about the same. She wakes up twice at the most but it's not for long. I am hoping that she can stay on this schedule as best we can while we are home visiting family for the holidays. She also continues to wake up happy and well rested in the mornings.

I definitely thought this process was going to be absolutely horrible. I had painted this awful picture in my head about letting Lilly cry and self soothe. A lot of that came from reading stuff online. I think reading and learning is awesome and super helpful but sometimes it can do the opposite. I read stories of babies throwing up in their cribs from crying so much. Yeah, not the best thing to read! But we had our own technique of how we were going to do this. We stay and rub her if we need to. She has a toy that plays soft music that helps soothe her. We give ourselves time limits as to how long we will let her fuss. We would never ignore her and let her cry herself sick. That's just not a realistic picture of how this works. And I know that now. Lilly has gone from waking and nursing 5+ times a night to waking once or twice. And it's only been a week! Another thing that really helped me stay strong was that I had a few people that I was texting each morning to let them know about our night. This held me accountable! And they were so encouraging! So thank you Amy and mom! You have helped me in so many ways!

This was something that I had to be 100% ready to do. I couldn't have done this even a day earlier than we did. Each day I am learning more and more and trusting those mommy instincts. I have also learned to never say never. Things are going to come up and your initial opinion about things will change. And that is OKAY. It is all part of the learning process!

So proud of our Lilly Bug!