Up until last week, my sweet Ellie needed to be rocked and soothed and ever so gently coerced to sleep. Usually the process would last less than a half hour, but occasionally we’d spend the better half of our evening attempting to get Elle to sleep. It was rough. So we decided the time has come to sleep train her.
I’m going to be honest here and just get it all out in the open. Sleep training (for us) is letting the babies cry until they fall asleep, with the hope of them learning to self sooth and put themselves to sleep. It sucks. There is no sound worse in the world than hearing your baby cry. It is gut wrenching awful.
But we did it with Zoe and she quickly transformed into an amazing sleeper. And quite frankly, I’m exhausted. With the exception of a few random nights, I haven’t slept through the night in well over six months!
So…last week we decided the time had come because Ellie is old enough to know we love her endlessly. That first night she cried for 38 long, horrendous minutes. Then she was out for the rest of the night.
On night two she cried for 12 minutes. Then slept until the sun came up.
Night three she didn’t cry. That’s right, she just rolled over to her side, closed her eyes, and fell asleep for the night.
And it’s been that way for several nights and two or three naps a day. She just goes to sleep when she’s tired. Yay!!! We have our evenings back and two great sleepers!
