mostly for myself- Avery's sleep

My online journal is not working right now so I just wanted to document a few things for myself and for the future.

First of all, Avery is sleeping so much better!  We went through a stage (like from age 5-9 months... yeah way long) that she was waking up a lot during the night.  At around 8 months old, I was extremely tired and didn't know how to help my little babe sleep better and getting frustrated.  We had had her sleeping in her swing for naps and had caved and put her in it during the night because she slept so much better there.  PLUS, she didn't sleep very well in her pack-n-play as we traveled during the summer, so she just slept in her swing and got pretty attached.

Finally though, I knew she COULD sleep through the night and felt that I might have to just let her cry. I did NOT want to do that.  Thankfully, I found this website: http://www.troublesometots.com/ and started making small changes before the cry it out was to come.  I made sure I had a solid bedtime routine.  I had done that before but I was still nursing her to sleep.  BAD.  Don't do this again!  Do this routine instead: bath if needed, PJ's, nurse, books, prayer and song.  This takes about 20 min+ and she is still fully awake when I put her down and after the first few nights of crying for less than 10 min, she goes down like a champ.  Now she goes down like an angel every night and Jake can help put her to sleep which is just precious and something I know he loves! The cry it out never came!

She used to wake up a lot during the night too, but what I did was just make myself nurse her one time during the night (11 or 2 or whatever) and then once in the early morning (5 or 6).   Even if she woke up more, I would only nurse her once during that time frame.  I would only nurse her for like 3 min. on one side and eventually she stopped waking up during the night.  We're still working on the 6 am food but hopefully she'll eventually stop that too.  I don't even care though.  Sleeping 9 hours straight without waking up is awesome!

The next goal was to work on naps and I have been doing that the past couple days.  Before 2 days ago, I would read a couple books, and sing her songs but she would not go down in her crib and she was not sleeping well in her swing.  She was just so riled up, and excited that she couldn't calm down for naps without her swing.  She would sleep for like 30 min and then just cry and it was horrible.  I think she has officially outgrown it. She never slept in her crib.  HOWEVER, the past couple days I have been doing EXACTLY the same routine (even changing her clothes before putting her down) as bed and she has slept in her crib for naps.  She I hope it's not a fluke, it would seriously be great if this is her new habit.  It would make life/traveling so much better! (I have become a champion swing setter-upper.  Not something I'm proud of)

I hope this helps in the future. Or helps anyone out there who is not getting enough sleep with a baby/child that should be sleeping mostly through the night.