We Finally Did It

Well, I wasn't sure it would ever really come to this, but, we cried-it-out with Little Chub last night. We set her crib up in the second bedroom, started a bedtime routine, said goodnight and put her in the crib. I was SO CERTAIN she would cry for hours. She cried for 20 minutes. I am a firm believer in the power of prayer. We were very blessed in this situation! Peter went in to reassure her at 5 minutes, and then 10 minutes later, and we didn't need to go back in because she fell asleep. And that was that. She woke up 4 or 5 times and cried for anywhere from 5 seconds to 3 minutes, but nothing really awful.

The reason it came to this was not the frequent night waking, but the playing in the bed at bedtime. I have been working on getting her onto a nice reasonable schedule for naps and bedtime, but it has not worked at all! Yesterday, I took her up to bed to nurse her to sleep around 10pm (which is earlier than she normally goes to bed, but I had worked with the napping to make sure she was tired and would be able to go to sleep for the night). Everytime she was asleep and I tried to unlatch and sneak away, she cried and woke up and really wouldn't let me go. This happened for 40 minutes until she unlatched and sat up and started whispering happily and playing (which is how she wakes up for the morning, or from good naps). I came downstairs with Little Chub and Peter and I decided that she was going in the crib that night. Waking up for a nap at 10:40 is ridiculous for an 11 month old baby!

So, it wasn't until 12:30 that we actually put her in the crib for the night. At 8:15 this morning, I heard her awake in her crib, so I went in, took her out and nursed her until she looked sleepy, then I put her back in the crib. She cried for less than 5 minutes, and is still asleep right now, at 9:30.

We've decided to make her bedtime gradually earlier and earlier until she is going to bed at a "normal" time, to avoid having her cry a lot when she is not really tired enough to sleep. Right now, we are very grateful that things worked out so nicely! I'm so grateful for prayer. I know that this was made easier for her as an answer to prayer. He wants what is best for her just like we do! (That is not to say that He doesn't want it for the children it doesn't work so easily for, but that this was a direct answer that we were blessed with for whatever reason.)