Victory is ours!

This past week has been quite victorious for us parents.

I'm almost tempted not to write this, in fear of jinxing the progress we've made.

Let me explain...

For the past 10 months of Eisley's life, I have had to get her to sleep. We have our routine of diaper change, sound machine, bottle and then rocking/swaying until she falls asleep in my arms. It was starting to wear me out. Especially when I knew she was ready for a nap and she would try to wiggle out of my arms and throw her pacifier on the ground. There were days when we would try 4 or 5 times before she eventually gave up. Not to mention, she's a giant. Well, not really but she's succeeded the 20 pound mark so all the swaying I would do was killing my back.

Needless to say, I felt stuck. I envied moms that would simply lay their child in their crib when it was time for a nap or bedtime. I wanted that so badly. But I didn't quite know how to go about it. I didn't want to let her scream and cry for hours until she ultimately just gave up and assumed I didn't love her anymore. After letting my mom know my frustrations, she suggested I should stick with my normal naptime/bedtime routine and then just lay her down, let her know she's ok, and walk away. I got a nervous feeling in my stomach when she said that. It pains me to hear her cry. Even if I know she's just complaining and not in any real pain, I still can't bear to hear it.

So that night we tried it. At first I would let her cry for 5 minutes and then go back in and lay her down, give her the pacifier (and a little blanket we introduced for comfort), tell her it's time for bed and walk back out. It went on for about 35 minutes until she eventually plopped down face first into the crib and didn't make another peep until morning. The next night it was basically the same thing. For her nap time 2 days after we started this, I laid her in the crib, walked out and she only cried for 5 minutes and passed out. I was in shock. I texted my mom, my mother-in-law and Craig and told them about this glorious feat. She did it! She put herself to sleep! MY daughter put herself to sleep after 1o months of depending on me (and only me) to get her to sleep.

I don't feel stuck anymore. She consistently gets herself to sleep now. She's only hysterical for a few minutes (which seem like an eternity watching her sad little face on the monitor). A month ago, I was so anti "cry-it-out". But I do believe there's a right way and a wrong way to do things. The amount of time she cries to decreasing, so I know she's learning that this is the new way of going to sleep. She didn't cry until the point of throwing up or scream bloody murder for hours on end. If I felt like this wasn't working for us, we would have been back to our old routine. I feel as though she is old enough to realize that I'll be back when it's time to wake up. When she wakes up, she's still a very happy girl.

I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief and feel like we made a tough parenting decision, and it's working out for the best. She has also stopped waking up a night just for me to rock her back to sleep. That would take a few hours sometimes, so I'm thankful for that. Life as a parent is all about learning as you go and doing what's best for your child. I feel successful. :)