Wendy & Lilly: July 2015

Sorry I am a little delayed in posting these! Let me tell you a story:

Before Wendy's 4-month check up, our sleep schedule looked mostly like this:

1st Nap: 9-11:30

2nd Nap: 1:30-4

3rd Nap: 6:30-7

In bed anywhere between 8:30 to 9:30

During the night I would only get up usually two times and was able to fall back asleep pretty easily each time. (I might get up around 1 and 4 and Wendy would be up for the day around 8). Then something happened. Where as Wendy was napping for about 2-3 hours for her first nap, she started only sleeping 30 minutes for her first nap. Then I found myself getting up more and more at night. She started to become really upset around bed time to the point where, when we would hold her and rock her, she would try to squirm out of our arms and pitch a fit. So, One day when she was pitching said fit, I made sure she had her pacifier, laid her down in her crib, and just let her cry until she fell asleep (15 minutes or so). So for the rest of the week, when it was time to go to sleep, I would lay her down with her pacifier and watch her on the monitor to make sure, even though she was crying, she had her pacifier and she was OK. This worked great during the day! But I was waking up more and more at night because, once she was asleep, she would lose her pacifier and wake up. It got to the point where I was only getting about three hours of sleep.

PJ had a vacation around the July 4th holiday. At the beginning of the vacation, we decided we were going to take away the pacifier completely and allow her to cry it out up to an hour during her nap time and then until she fell asleep during the night. The first night we did it, she really did cry an hour but was as happy as she could be once we got her up. Then when we put her down to bed that night, she only cried about 20 minutes and slept 8 hours! The next night was 10 hours, the next 12. She has regulated out to about 10.5 hours at night, a 30 minute nap during the morning, 2 hours in the afternoon, and a 30 minute nap in the late afternoon. Sleep has returned to the Mitchell house! OK, now for what you really came for:

Wendy after a great night's sleep! This is also her little sleep suit. I'm not one for baby gimmicks, but this suit helps with the transition between being swaddled and not swaddled. Doesn't she look like a little marshmallow!