8 Months In....

Kalissa Rae turned eight months old today! She is getting to be such a big girl. Now that the weather has turned a corner, we're getting out and about more and more. She now rides in the front compartment of shopping carts. No more lugging her around in her carseat! She's eating more and more foods with heavier textures and she gained her third tooth today (upper left central incisor)! But the biggest news is that she is finally SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! *stadium applause*

It's been 11 weeks since I started monitoring her sleep/feeding patterns by writing them on a schedule sheet. That helped because Al and I could keep track of when she last slept or ate but it wasn't really helping me to get her on a true schedule. So about 6 weeks ago I stepped it up and dictated nap times and feeding times. No more eating and sleeping all willy nillie. She got a morning nap and an afternoon nap and absolutely NO sleeping after 3 o'clock (with the intent that she'd be good and tired by an 8:30 bedtime). That was all fine and good but she rarely would go to sleep at the exact time that I wanted her to and she was still waking up in the night to be rocked back to sleep. It was getting worse too...she would wake every hour after around 2 or 3 a.m. At that point, I had had enough. I was ready to incorporate "cry it out". Al's a supporter of it and my pediatrician is too. I had to at least try it. So about 3 weeks ago, we started Operation Sleep Through the Night. Phase One was letting her cry it out for her day time naps. I still couldn't bring myself to let her cry at night for fear of keeping my neighbors up. I put her in her crib at her designated nap times and that's when the drama began. The first couple of times, she cried for up to 45 minutes. After about a week of this, she no longer cried when I put her down for a nap. Success!! Well, not so fast. She was still waking up in the night but usually only once. Because of my neighbors, I found myself going in to comfort her back to sleep. Al finally said, enough is enough. I HAD to let her cry it out at night if she was ever going to learn. I finally gave in....time for Phase Two. I sent my adjacent neighbors an email and asked them to work with me for a week. If it didn't work after a week, then I would try something else. It took 2 nights! The first night, she woke up and cried for 20 minutes. It killed me not to go get her. The second night, she cried for 10 minutes. Again...agony! But then...we had a breakthrough. She slept through the night once, then again and again and now look:

The smiley face indicates that she slept through the night. I don't even bother with that any more because she has been sleeping through ever since. She goes down for naps without crying and is in bed by 9:30. In the mornings, it's ME who is waking HER up for breakfast! Ahhhhh...I am exhaling FOR REAL. I used to dread going to bed and now sleeping is soooooo lovely. In addition, I have at least 4 hours each day during her naps to do ME! I'm loving this schedule. I only wish I had tried Phase 2 sooner!! I told Al that earlier on she wasn't ready. He said, "No...YOU weren't ready." Point taken.