Tough Love

Last night, we did it.

We let Scarlett cry herself to sleep.

I had every intention to do what I normally do, and nurse her than rock her to sleep, then lay her down gently. After laying her down gently, she opened her eyes and smiled at me, in a sort of.. haha, gotcha lady, you are mine, i am the boss.. sort of way. I knew I didn't want to spend another 15 minutes upstairs trying to rock her back to sleep and lay her down gently. I patted her gently, said it's nigh-night time and promptly left the room. She was angry. I went downstairs to grab my phone so that I could look up how to actually do this and headed back upstairs so I could sit outside her door, which was cracked.

I timed 3 minutes and she was still pretty angry so I went in, laid her down because she was standing up at the crib. I know for a split second she thought I was going to pick her up, which probably brought a glimmer of hope to her little world, right before I laid her down and the agony continued. I said to her gently again, it's nigh-night time, i love you but it's time to go to sleep. And promptly left again. More crying ensued and I was supposed to wait 5 minutes before going in again. Her crys were dying down to whimpers so I stayed out more like 8 minutes and then made a mistake. She was still crying on and off so I thought one more time to go in would be the last. Well that made her mad again when I left, again, but about 5 minutes later she had laid down and fallen asleep.

Success!

She slept until 1:30 am. I walked over to her room, laid her down, told her to go back to sleep and left. Again, she was angry but fell back asleep in about 5 minutes or so.

She woke again at 3:30am. I did the same thing. She was quiet in her crib so I thought I would go and check on her. I found her sitting in her crib looking around. She had been doing that for 15 minutes. I wondered if she was hungry and since she wasn't bawling for me, I did nurse her. When she was done, she was sleepy again and I laid her down again. She wailed again when I left and then fell asleep about 5 minutes later.

She woke for the day at 6:45am.

Overall, I think it was a successful evening. I didn't actually lose anymore sleep than I normally would. I'm hoping tonight goes even better and she can sleep even longer.

It's bittersweet sleep training her, I know it's what is best for her and me but I will miss getting up with her. I will miss her needing me. I will miss holding her limp sleeping body with her head upon my shoulder right before I lay her back down to sleep. Pretty soon, she'll sleep through the night and we won't look back. I do hope to remember these times though, as they truly are precious. Guess we'll just have to have another so I can do it all over again :)