Lula has always been the easy, textbook baby. One would think that after six kids, I would know exactly what I was doing all the time. After five co-sleeping, night-nursing kids, making the choice to "sleep train" Lula was a weird and difficult one.
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| Going... |
I haven't tried cry-it-out since Ian was a baby when we failed miserably at it. I remember standing outside Ian's closed bedroom door while he screamed and cried. Mark kept saying, "What is WRONG with him? Why isn't he falling asleep! It worked for Ami and Laura! Laura slept completely through the night right off the bat!" I was crying too, so I just picked him up and rocked him to sleep in my arms five times a night for ten months until I discovered co-sleeping.
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| ...going... |
I continued co-sleeping with the other kids because I didn't like the idea of disturbing my growing teenagers or Mark who really needed his sleep (thank you little orange earplugs). But Lula is way more easy-going and she doesn't sleep well when she is with me. And I know that if I don't do this sleep training now, I am going to really regret it in a few months when I'm too pregnant to haul my belly out of bed and lean over the side of the crib five times a night.
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| ...gone! (and ohmygoodness don't you love those thighs? and the belly?) |
For the last week or so, Lula has been falling asleep in her crib on her own after she sucks down her last bottle of the day. She only cried the first night. I stay in the room, snuggling with Daniel (who still sneaks into bed with us at night), but I do lay her back down if she gets up. I've also spent the last week weaning her off a middle of the night bottle, so when she is waking up, I just lay her back down and replace her binky.
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| Favorite sleeping position |
Last night/this morning, she wouldn't lie back down and go to sleep unless she could hold my hand under her while she was in her favorite sleeping position (see picture above). That was so not going to work for me, so after 20 minutes of her getting up, I walked out and shut the door. I went back to bed and listened to her cry for exactly 15 minutes...until she fell asleep and stayed asleep for the rest of the night. The whole time I repeated my you-will-be-so-happy-in-a-few-months mantra so I wouldn't get up and bring her to bed with me. Making her cry and sleep alone has not been easy on my mama heart, but I know I'm doing the right thing for her and meeting her needs the way they need to be met. And that is what attachment parenting is all about.
