"I didn't know that was even a thing."

We hired a sleep consultant. As my mom said, "I didn't know that was even a thing." Neither did I, until I did, and now here we are!

I debated about posting about it, and have even debated about telling people in general, because it sort of makes me feel like a failure that I can't figure it out on my own. But, I know that asking for help does not make me a failure...so, I'm working through that :) Our version of "sleep training" was not going well, and didn't seem to be helping a whole lot, and we were backsliding a lot because of traveling and my own desire to just "get her to sleep!" as fast as possible.

I've been following The Baby Sleep Site blog and emails for a couple of months now, and have enjoyed Nicole's (site owner and sleep consultant) writing. She is a mom, has been-there-done-that, and through it all decided to educate herself about sleep as much as she could in order to help other moms. Through all of my reading zillions of books and half-heartedly trying different things with Annabelle, I just always felt like I wished someone would just tell me what would work best for MY kid, and give me a step-by-step plan for how to do it, and encourage me along the way.

Nicole did that for us.

I honestly expected it to be a scam, but we are desperate for some semblance of a restful night's sleep, so we forked over the money and signed up to work with Nicole. She promises a personalized sleep plan for families, and I really expected it to be like 2 pages of "fill-in-your-name-here" blather. WOW, was I wrong. As soon as we signed on the dotted line, we were emailed an 8 page interview about our lives, our baby, our schedule, what we have tried, what worked, what didn't, what we're willing to do, what we're not, and on and on and on. It was very detailed! We filled it out, sent it back, and waited. Two days later, a 24 page sleep plan arrived in my in-box. Yes, you read that right. It was educational information about Annabelle's stage of life, how much she should sleep, etc..., which I'm sure is stock for any baby that age. But, she did include personal anecdotes that I mentioned in our interview, and what to expect Annabelle to do based on her apparent personality and demeanor. The sleep plan itself (beyond the educational information) was very detailed. I'm not going to post word-for-word here what it said, but the gist is that we need to get Annabelle to learn to fall asleep on her own (obviously) so that I don't have to spend 5 hours a night nursing her back to sleep each time she wakes up, and fighting her to sleep for naps and at bed time.

We told Nicole we wanted as little crying as possible, and that we were absolutely against CIO and leaving her to cry at all. I don't believe it's right to not comfort your baby if s/he needs it, and Nicole was more than willing to work with us despite that, which was a huge relief. Our plan is 26 days long, and if it's not working or we're not seeing improvement after a week, we'll revamp it. We are starting off co-sleeping to try to get as little crying as possible. The plan is to do our normal bedtime routine, then nurse Annabelle until she is sleepy and put her down next to us in bed (which means one or both of us are in bed at 6:15 for the first four nights. That's okay.) She is allowed to play, explore her surroundings, or do whatever she wants except for nursing, and we are NOT allowed to help her fall asleep. If she cries, it is up to us how we want to soothe her (except nursing), and then once she calms down, we lay her back down to fall asleep on her own. The goal is after a few nights of this, she will settle down more and more quickly, and be able to fall asleep without nursing. We're working only on bedtime first. I can still nurse her back down for night wakings and nap times the first few nights. Once she can fall asleep in our bed with us by herself, we will move her to her crib to learn to fall asleep there. The idea is that once she knows how to fall asleep without the boob, she'll have a much easier time doing it in her crib.

After the first few nights of doing bedtime, we will do the same thing for overnight wake-ups. Because we are doing baby-led-solids (not forcing baby food for meals, but letting Annabelle eat real food if and when she feels like it at meal time), and because of her age, Nicole suggested allowing Annabelle to have two nighttime feedings, around 11:00 or midnight, and then again around 3:00 a.m. Other than that, she should not need to wake up to nurse (unless sick, or something). After overnights, we will work on nap times, if we want to. Nicole said that day time sleep and night time sleep are processed in different parts of the brain, so it's not a big deal to still nurse her down for naps if we want to for awhile, until night times are mastered. Annabelle will need as much sleep as possible during sleep training so she isn't over tired, so we should do what we need to do to get her to nap as long as we can.

After all is said and done, the goal is for Annabelle to fall asleep on her own at bedtime (6:30 or 7 p.m.), have only two night wakings for eating, take two naps around 9:30 and 1:30 for at least an hour each, and be a happy and well-rested baby.


Soooo, how am I feeling about all of this? Nervous, hopeful, excited, sad, scared, relieved, guilty...you name it, I am experiencing almost all of the emotions possible for different reasons. We prayed prayed prayed that this would go well, and are continuing to pray. I just hope it doesn't take very long, and hope it doesn't take a lot of tears (on Annabelle's side OR my side!). So, here we go.

Sleep (what else???)

It is 10:31 p.m. as I sit down to write this post. Annabelle is awake in her room with Jason. She has been awake since about 9:15 p.m. It's ridiculous. But it's my fault.

Sleep the past few days has been aawwwwwful. Annabelle has been out of her element, out of her routine, and it's all just a big mess. Her naps have been all over the place because we have been traveling, so she falls asleep in the car not at nap time, and then she is wide awake until dinner time, then crashes, but it's technically a "nap" to her, so she's awake at bedtime, and then she goes to bed but wakes up because she thinks it's another nap...it's all just nutso. Now she is singing in the other room while Jason attempts to put her back down. I'm not quite sure how to remedy this messed up schedule. Probably we'll just have to get her up at 7:15 (usual wake up time) even though she'll be exhausted, and try to keep her up until her normal nap time (9:00), and hope it gets her back on schedule.

Parenting is a riot.

Home School Expo

I spent the last few days in Chicago-land checking out the Home School Expo and spending time with my parents. My friend Kim and her son Caleb met us up there for the Expo, which started on Thursday with a "Homeschooling for Excellence 101" class. It wasn't all I thought it would be, but some aspects were educational. Same thing for the expo itself. Mostly, it was just awesome to see how many families home school, and how many of them are normal. It was also awesome to see how much support there is for home schooling. One of my biggest fears of doing it is that I will be lost, not know what to do, teach, buy, etc... during the process. The expo showed me that fear is not valid. There are SO many people who are excited and willing to help out home school parents with any decision, question, or problem they might have. It was actually a huge relief to see! While we still have a few years until Annabelle is technically "school age," it was a good experience and I definitely pocketed some ideas for down the road.

Sleep update

The last two nights I have been at my parent's house by myself with Annabelle...no Jason. We have been at a homeschool conference (more on that later), and so sleep has been TOTALLY thrown off. Horrible, off-time naps, causing crazy bed times and wake times. So, in an effort for both of us to get as much sleep as possible, and to lower my already raised stress level, I have been bringing Annabelle to bed with me when she wakes up around midnight. Happily, though, her waking as still been minimal. Last night she was up a few times before I went to bed, but once she was on bed with me she only woke up 3 times to nurse, instead of every hour or two like she used to do when we co-slept all night long. So yay for that! We will be going back home on Sunday, so hopefully things will be back to normal before too long.

Week #2. Night #8.

Last night was the first night of week 2, and it started off horribly, as most Mondays do. Since Annabelle basically had a 3 hour nap (with 45 minutes of wakefulness in the middle) during the middle of the day, she was super tired when 6:00 rolled around. She was asleep in her crib by 6:30. Apparently not for the night.

6:30--Nursed to sleep, put down in her crib.
7:05--Woke up. I tried nursing her back to sleep, but the dog started barking at Jason getting home, and that perked her right up. She was WIDE awake then, so Jason took her for a nice long walk.
8:00--Tried putting her down. No dice.
9:00--Tried putting her down. Still wide awake.
10:00--FINALLY fell asleep. Jason tried putting her down but she screamed bloody murder, so I nursed her.
10:35--Awake again. SERIOUSLY!?!? Jason got her back down quickly and with little crying.

...ready for this...?

3:05--Woke up. Did you catch that? Almost FIVE HOURS of sleep! I didn't realize it until I saw the clock in her room. Mine was messed up from the power going out earlier, and said 1:30, so I didn't think it was that impressive. I double checked my phone, and sure enough, it said 3:05. Holy. Cow. I could have won the lotto I was so excited. I nursed her back to sleep almost immediately, and put her down in her crib again.
5:00--Woke up. Brought her to bed with me. She tossed and turned until she was comfortable (feet on the pillow, head by my waist) and fell asleep until 7:15.

Total Sleep: Counting her short little stint at 6:30, she slept almost 11 hours. Hooray!
Total number of wake ups: THREE!!!!!!
Longest sleep stretch: 4 hours, 35 minutes, on her own.

So, I'm wondering if maybe she needs to be put down for a short cat nap before dinner, like maybe around 5, and then push her bedtime back to 7:30 or 8? I think we might try that.  I wonder if getting her extra energy out before going to bed is what helped her almost sleep through the night.

Anyway, we're making progress. Praise Jesus.