Sleep Training Day 3

A couple of weeks ago we moved Emery's crib into our room. She was fast approaching the 15 pound weight limit on our bassinet, but still waking too often during the night to make sleeping in her own room a real possibility. Around the same time she developed a stuffy nose, and well, the whole sleeping in her crib in our room thing has been quite the disaster. Like, I'm up every two hours disaster. John finally put his foot down and declared that we were going to have to sleep train her and just let her cry it out in her crib. I am fundamentally opposed to "crying it out", so we compromised on a no-cry sleep training regimen. Give her a predictable routine to signal bedtime, put her in her crib, pick her up and calm her down every time she cries, but always put her back in her crib while she is still awake.

We were terrified of this plan. Emery has quite the strong personality, and we were convinced that she would absolutely never go for this kind of imposed structure. But this is day three and things seem to be going pretty well (fingers crossed while knocking on every piece of wood/particle board I can find). The pre-bed routine takes about 45 minutes and the pick her up/put her down part has only lasted 30 minutes at most without much fuss. Tonight she was a rockstar and only had to be picked up once. And... she actually ate some oatmeal. I assure you she was very unhappy about the whole thing, but she honestly ate a good 8-10 small bites.

Mom, eww, this stuff is so gross!

Will you stop if I make the pouty face?

Forget it, I'm puking

The fact that these pictures represent by far the most successful feeding to date should give you a good idea of what dinnertime is like around here.

Just to prove I don't torture my child at all moments during the day, here are some pictures of her enjoying her pre-bed bath.

Mmm... crab

The best faux-hawk we can do with so little hair

Ha ha, I dare you to take an in-focus picture of me

UPDATE: The first two nights we put her down she slept really well. 4-5 hours at a stretch before needing to nurse again. Last night was not one of those nights. We were back to waking up every 1-2 hours to her screaming. Let's hope it is the little cough she has this morning and not a sign of things to come.