Sleep Training Night 1

After having some really rough nights over the last couple of weeks, I finally was at a breaking point and knew I had to make some big changes with Karis and her sleeping habits. I have been so sleep deprived, which makes the RA flare up and also just makes me irritable and impatient with my kids, which is not what I want.
Several friends had recommended the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child to me, (one when Caleb was a baby) and I finally went and got it last week. It's amazing how much I have learned through this book about what healthy sleep habits look like and what the effects are of even a mild chronic sleep deprivation. I'm starting to realize that this describes Caleb. We let him stay up too late at night and plan to make changes with him, too, very soon. I was just so scared to let him cry for hours on end as a baby. I had read books that talked about how it would break the baby's trust in you and hurt the attachment, and so I always held him until he was fully asleep and then laid him down and always picked up him up in the middle of the night and got him back to sleep. So he didn't learn to put himself to sleep on his own.

It is only now with Karis when I don't have the option of doing this b/c I have 2 young children that it's becoming a necessity. And now that I have read this book and realize what a gift it is to teach your baby to fall asleep on their own, I wish I had done it with Caleb when he was a baby. But I can't change that now. I can just choose to teach it to Karis as a baby and Caleb as a toddler.
So, anyway, we started with the sleep training last night. I honestly thought it was going to be terrible - hours of crying, only for her to wake a few hours later and more hours of crying. But this was not the case at all.
I put Karis down (awake but drowsy) at 7pm, and she only cried for one hour and then literally slept the entire night, until 6:45 this morning. I still can't believe it! Her crib is in our room so Marc and I slept on the air mattress downstairs, thinking there would be lots of crying. And even though there wasn't, I still woke up every hour or two just thinking I heard her crying. But from what I understand this gets better, as I have to relearn how to sleep through the night as well!
Naptime this morning was a little harder. She cried for an hour and a half, and just fell asleep as I was typing this. I know it will continue to get easier, although I've been warned she might cry more the second night, but the third should be less. Anyhow, I'm so thankful that we are finally doing this and that Karis will learn how to fall asleep on her own. Now for the sleep training with Caleb...

I turned 30 on Friday! I have such an awesome husband. He got a kit with 3 little flower pots that you paint and then put his and the kids' names, one on each, painted a flower with their thumbprints as the center, and wrote "Your Love Makes Us Grow" across the top of the pots. It was so thoughtful and meaningful. He also gave me a 4 hour spa package to the Grand Spa in Addison!!! I can't wait! Then on Friday night we had the kids, so we went somewhere low-key for dinner, but I still got my favorite meal - Cracker Barrel french toast...yumm! And then on Saturday night the kids stayed at Gramps and Grammy's house for a couple of hours so we could go out. Marc took me to a nice restaurant for some really good steak and then we went to Truluck's for dessert. He took me there for my 25th b-day when we were dating, and I had to get the same dessert. It's this amazing desserts shaped like a gift-bag, with a chocolate outside and filled with pound cake, berries, and whipped cream. Delicious.
More than anything we just had such a great time going out just the 2 of us. It's only the 3rd time since Karis was born, so it was much needed.

Also, very exciting news - Karis took a bottle while we were on our date! Several friends suggested the brown, latex nipple, and it seems to work. Now I'm just hoping she'll take it again. Karis had her 6 month appt last week and weighed in at 16lbs (50th percentile) and was 26 3/8 inches long (75th percentile). I guess that's it for the updates. I think she'll have a tooth and start crawling very soon!