Xiaoniu 小妞

Tonight is our first night in a two week long (at least) process of retraining Emelia to sleep on her own. After reading plenty of materials including the Ferber book, speaking with the pediatrician and waking up from plenty of sleepless nights with very achy bodies we’re ready for a change. The little one does not need to sleep with us. So, she is moving back to her crib.

The process is pretty simple, but takes some backbone. Essentially, you have to establish a good and consistent pre-bedtime routine. Ours is to say good night to mommy including a kiss, change into a pajamas and read a book or two. By then the baby should be sleepy, but not asleep. Then it’s into the crib and another kiss good night from dad. Then baby falls asleep soundly on her own.

In reality everything except for the last part takes place. After being put into the crib and tucked in the baby proceeds to get up, make her way to the end of the crib and proceed to scream at the top of her lungs for about 1 hour. Daddy going back in to soothe baby in increasingly long intervals. By the end the baby has found it in her heart to save her parents any more torture and proceeds to go to sleep.

It took just over 1 hour for her to get to sleep. I decided to start off with pretty small intervals tonight. Tomorrow night I’ll start out 1-2 minutes longer and then go from there.

The interesting part will be seeing how she reacts to waking up in the crib throughout the night. During normal sleep patterns everybody wakes up briefly and goes back to sleep immediately and without realizing it later if everything is still ok. If something is out of place the person wakes up. The same will happen with Emelia and since she’ll be in her crib we’ll probably have to go through the whole going to sleep bit again. I just hope that it doesn’t last as long. I can follow through with it, but it’s very tough on Sue.

In the end I think this is best for all of us. We all sleep at night, but none of us really get a good night of sleep unless we are sleeping in the spare room or don’t have the baby with us. We usually wake up tired and very sore from trying to fit onto a queen size bed with a squirmy baby (a nearly a toddler size baby). Emelia does not sleep well either, but seems to make it through the day ok. Sleeping in our own beds will make a world of difference. Sue will hopefully get to sleep like she did over a year ago. It’s been a long time.

Updated
Emelia ended up waking two times throughout the night. She was asleep by 8:30pm and woke up at 12:30am and 4am. It took 30 minutes for her to sleep after waking at 12:30am. There was a lot less crying. Most of the time she spent tossing and turning trying to get back asleep. At 4am we figured she was ready for a small bottle. She sucked down 4 ounces and I put on a fresh diaper. It took her about 15 minutes to sleep that time. Again, a lot less crying than the first time.

I was hoping that she would sleep until 6:45 or at least 6:30 like a normal day, but woke up when the alarm went off at 6:00am. So, we all go up and started the day early. She even started to doze off in the truck on the way to daycare. I figure she’ll be ready for a nap earlier than normal today and let daycare know.

Tonight is round two. We’re going to continue with this. Emelia did not hold a grudge and despite my always putting her back into the crib she was especially attached to me this morning. Sue is fully on board with continuing. I may need a nap.