My happy little girl has returned!! And so has happy mommy & daddy!

Man oh man can Nick and I please say how thankful we are that our little girl is napping again. We have been able to leave the house twice without total meltdowns!!!! She even fell asleep in the car without mommies help for the 1st time since Thanksgiving!!! Can you believe we got through an entire mexican fiesta with friends without a meltdown?! I still am in shock!!

In my previous post I shocked the blogging community as well as myself that I would be letting my little innocent 2.5 month old cry it out a little. I never really went into our plan but lets just say it is and has been for a very short period of time she is crying alone in her crib before she is checked on and we are mixing this approach with the shhh/pat method talked about in the Baby Whisperer, as well as getting her to wind down before nap time. It has been working like a charm!!! I suppose I was just too quick to run to her every time she made a peep and swoop her up like the momma bird I am.  Yes, it has been very difficult to listen to her cry but to be honest I can tell it isn't a "i need you cry" it is more of that sleepy, grumpy, whine, or mantra cry, if you will.  (mantra" cry, which is a fussy self-settling cry that tends to be rhythmic and does not escalate.  This mantra cry is sometimes part of a baby's self-settling process and if that's what your baby is doing, it's okay to hang back and see which direction it goes.  However, if it turns into a genuine "I need you" cry that escalates, the baby whisperer would recommended responding promptly and using shush/pat to help your baby settle in the crib)She will also sometimes do the phantom cry when she is going into her next sleep cycle...well before I was rushing in and well I am now realizing, I was the problem. We are still working on those 45 minute naps but if I am upstairs real close to her room when she first stirs & makes a peep I can sneak in slip the paci in her mouth and put my hand on her chest and since she is now being swaddled her arms don't flail and she will pretty much fall right back to sleep (as long as I stay ducked down and she doesn't seem momma's face) Uh huh you heard me right, my daughter has a magical paci ;O) If that fails and she continues to stir and wakes up completely I will turn her aquarium crib mobile on and replace her paci make sure she is swaddled tight whisper sweet nothings and leave the room. This will usually start a few minutes of her crying (again we are not talking screaming bloody-murder here) and she is out again. Then there are the naps where none of the above work and she is up after 45 minutes. Oh well....as long as she is happy and not so overtired I could care less if she slept 20 minutes and could make it through the day. But unfortunately my sweet angel cannot make it without a few naps!!

Bedtime is a completely different story...she is nursed right before bed. I put her down super drowsy and she is usually out like a light after her music ends on her aquarium.

I found this pretty helpful from the baby whisperer:

Right now, her brain is working on learning how to stay asleep during the day.

Day sleep is much different from night sleep. Completely different process.

When she fall asleep, the first 20 mins are light sleep (with partial awakenings every 10 mins.. looks like a jolt of her body, or some babies will open their eyes completely) After 20 min, the body enters a deep sleep. Another jolt around the 30 min mark, and then out of the sleep cycle at 40 mins. So basically jolting every 10 mins.

When she's learning how to fall asleep, she may completely wake every 10 min. This is normal and she is just learning.

In the beginning of learning how to fall asleep I recommend the following:

-- keep awake times short, act on the first yawn, careful not to overstimulate and overtire
-- swaddle swaddle swaddle
-- have a consistent wind down routine
-- some babies, particularly spirited, need a dark environment. Also white noise will block the outside sounds.
-- some babies respond to pat-shush, some respond to either pat or shush
-- make sure they are falling asleep in their beds.. they can start the stages of falling asleep on you, but in bed by stage 3, if not, then they will jolt awake because of the weight of their body.
--I'm a side sleeper fan, APA says it's okay
-- Hand pressure helps to settle into sleep, and helps with the jolts.. hand on the thigh, top arm, and other hand shielding over eyes to block visual stimulation. Some pressure (not over eyes of course) but not hard.
--and in the beginning, stay at least 20 mins.





Thanks to everyone for the words of encouragement during the past few weeks. It was rough and I know that things will get hard again. But, right now this is what is working, and I am so thankful! I couldn't image being that horrible unhappy mommy to my unhappy baby one more day!

♥♥