Learning How to Sleep

One of the biggest joys in my life is rocking my baby girl to sleep. 95% of the time I don't want to be anywhere but in that rocking chair cradling my sweet girl. It is such a special time for us to connect, slow down and just be. I love stroking her soft little cheek with mine, and feeling her sweet, slow breath on my face. The other 5% of the time is usually around 2 or 3 in the morning which, to be honest, doesn't work as well for me. It seems that sometime somehow, my sweet girl has gotten spoiled.

She used to be so good about sleeping through the night even though I would initially rock her to sleep. Now, she wakes up in the middle of the night, realizes that I am not there and naturally needs me to put her back to sleep. Well it seems that a month and a half of doing this every night, and sometimes multiple times a night, has finally paid it's toll on me. I have decided to teach Isabella how to go to sleep. I figure the older she gets, the harder it will be right?

Take one: Nap time. My first attempt was yesterday at nap time. When she started sucking her thumb, her "I'm sleepy" signal, I put her in her crib, laid her down, and said, "Go nightnight. Mommy loves you" and simply left the room. I watched her on the monitor. She played by herself (although she has no toys in her crib!) for 40 minutes before simply laying down and going to sleep, all without so much as a fuss. She took a good nap for almost 2 hours.

Surely it can't be that easy.

Take two: Bed time. We stayed out much later than planned and Isabella was worn out from so much playing that I thought that might be to our advantage. We got home around 8:30pm- yes I know, oh so late!- and went straight to bathtime. Bathtime was followed up with a bottle as usual (yeah another habit I will someday need to break!) and to my surprise she didn't fall asleep. I was happy about this because I wanted her awake when I put her down so that she would be fully aware of what was going on. My thinking was that when she woke up in the night, she would remember being put down awake and then fall asleep on her own.

I laid her in bed at 8:45pm and told her, "Go nightnight. Mommy loves you." I rubbed her back for a second and left the room. She was quiet at first but then started to get upset. I told Joe not to let me go back in the room for 10 minutes. Maybe she would fall asleep on her own or play or something. She cried off and on, and after 10 minutes I went back into her room. I cradled her face and kissed her, laid her back down and rubbed her back for a few minutes telling her to go nightnight and again that I loved her. After 15 minutes of rubbing her back and singing to her, her breathing seemed steady, so I left the room.

She slept for 45 minutes and woke again at around 9:45. I waited 10 mintues before I went in, and you guessed it same routine. Kiss, pat, laid down, love you, nightnight. I was in her room a total of 5 minutes before she was fast asleep. I crossed my fingers and left the room. I went downstairs, cuddled up in my own bed and figured I better fall asleep quickly because I figured it was going to be a long night of waking up every hour or so. But I vowed to myself that no matter how sad and pathetic, no matter how many "mamas" she said, I would NOT pick her up and rock her. I would simply follow the routine. I had to keep reminding myself that I might be sleep deprived for a week or so, but in the long run, it would well be worth it. I slowly drifted off to sleep....

At 3:30 I woke up... but Isabella had not! Yea!! That had to be some sort of victory. I fell back asleep and woke again at 5:30 and again, Isabella had not! My body is clearly used to getting up multiple times in the night. Precious sleep again. Finally at 7:30am I heard the sweet little voice of Isabella "talking" to herself. That's right! She slept ALL night. Or if she didn't, she didn't need me to help her back to sleep.

Score: Mommy 1, Isabella 0