Growing Up

This week is Spring Break for Gavin and me, and since we don't have any school, we decided it was time to start sleep training Zoey.

Starting from about 7 weeks, Zoey was an excellent sleeper. She slept through the night almost every night. I don't know how that happened, but I stick to my original thoughts: she's just an awesome baby. We can't really take credit for her anwesomeness any more than we can for her red hair.

Anyway, she did well until about 6 months old when she started getting little sicknesses here and there. A cold, a sore throat, a runny nose. While she was sick I got up with her throughout the night and nursed her back to sleep. It comforted her and helped her get the rest she needed to heal. Well, now that her immune system has toughened up and she's not getting sick much, she's warmed to the idea of us coming in several times throughout the night to check on her and to walk her back to sleep. In fact, she started demanding it, and would scream bloody murder if we didn't.

I read up on what I had been doing wrong, and it was humbling. Luckily this hadn't gone on long before we started correcting it. Now, we let her cry more and are encouraging her to self-soothe. We still go in if she can't sleep right away, and let her know we're there and that we love her, but we don't pick her up and we don't feed her. I read that a baby's stomach is developed enough to be able to sleep through the night at a very early age, so I don't feel like I'm starving her, as long as she gets a good dinner.

Well, it's only day two and I think she's got the idea. She's got her blankies, her bunny and her pacifier and she's learning to use them to comfort herself. We pat ourselves on the back for being strong enough to get through the heart-wrenching cries of "Mama" and "Dada", because now she sleeps through the night again. Yay!

She's growing up and learning so much... and so are we.