Celebrate life's small victories

So in the past couple weeks, Blueberry has started waking up more in the night and insisting on being rocked and held until she went back to sleep. Sure it is fine the first night or two, and then the waking up increases and the crying time lengthens and she wants that treatment every time to fall asleep.

I was not okay with this new trend.

A neighbor was telling me about a book that she got on baby sleep. I googled it. I was too impatient to get and read a whole book- just needed a short article to get started. I found info on the "cry it out" methods and the "no tears" method and decided Blueberry was not getting the no tears method (Sorry baby!) Seriously, the "no tears" method... "Sears recommends patiently helping your baby learn to sleep in his own time. He encourages co-sleeping, rocking and nursing your baby to sleep, and other forms of physical closeness to create positive sleep associations now and healthy sleep habits down the road. Pantley offers a gentle and gradual approach to all aspects of sleep, customized to your baby's needs. She recommends rocking and feeding your baby to the point of drowsiness before putting him down — and responding immediately if he cries. Parents are urged to keep sleep logs, nap logs, and night-waking logs. Pantley also describes a six-phase process for teaching a child to sleep in a crib." I am anti co-sleeping, rocking to sleep is causing the problem, and nursing your baby to sleep? Sorry. I am not a pacifier. Keeping a sleep log, nap log, night-waking log... you have to be kidding me.

Anyway, I decided we had to try the "cry it out" (which sounds cruel, but based on the results promised, was worth a try). Night #1 of the CIO method:

1. Sent Mark to the grocery store. He is a pushover for a little fuss.
2. Blueberry cried, fussed, and all around threw a stinkin' fit about her mom's new ideas on falling asleep.
3. Followed the ideas and intermittently soothed. She wanted no part. Felt like a schmuck when I went in one time and she had lost her binky and was pitifully whining and sucking on her afghan.
   
4. After ~45 min Mark returns from the store and wants to go in and hold her.
5. Got Mark up to speed and on board with the new plan
6. Another ~20 minutes goes by with quiet spells starting to break into the crying fit.
7. Blueberry puts herself to sleep (even no binky!)

Night #2:

1. Blueberry fusses for about 30 min.
2. Sleeps from ~ 8:45pm-6:15am
3. Glorious.