Or at least if your talking to me these days it does.
Piper went from sleeping pretty darn good to sleeping...sporadically at best.
And the longer it went on, the harder it got for everyone. So something had to change.
My friend Alison let me borrow her Mother (Thanks Vicky!) for some sleeping advice and support. And I poured over books, internet sites, and asked friends (and strangers) what worked for them.
I was driving Josh crazy.
He wanted to go with the flow. But what flow? It wasn't flowing! My thought is, the more info you have the better to create a plan that works for you and your family. Everyone is different after all. Which is just what I found, no one book had the answers (I wanted to hear) but I kept coming back to The Baby Whisper (Thanks Cousin Denise!) because it had sound advice that did not involve crying, I could ignore what I felt I needed to and I could start now.
Sleeping is learned.
Teaching sleeping is hard.
But the earlier you start the less traumatic and the less likely we'll be bleary eyed and cranky when she's four (at least thats my hope). So yesterday we decided to start in the morning and just do naps. No more relying on "junk sleep" which means so more swing naps *sob* and my new task is to keep Piper from sleeping while she's nursing. Wonderful. How in the heck do I do that?! Thats our fail safe! Thats how she goes to bed at night!
But on the first try Miss Piper went down for a nap in her crib with some support from her parents. Now, she only slept for a 1/2 hour but hey- we're learning here. Next nap, 45 minutes (which Josh was able to put her down for). Then another 1/2 hour stint and so it continued until she was over tired. Truth be told, I came very close to slipping back into the old stand by, but Josh had read and been on board and I didn't want to let down my team mate, so I stuck to it. This morning she was down for her nap in 10 minutes with out so much as a whimper. Yahoo!!
Then I sat.
Sat with her and waited for her to stir so that I could help lull her into the next phase of sleep. And it worked! Its been almost 2 and a 1/2 hours now and she's fast asleep still.
Now, I'm not so naive to think this is the end, I know we have a long road ahead of us with ups and downs. However, success in 24 hours feels pretty darn good to me.
