Getting Better

Well, we've been doing some sleep training for just over a week now and things are getting better!  We changed Lennon's before bed routine.  I was still nursing her to pretty much asleep before.  Now our bedtime routine is: feeding, diaper change, pajamas, wash face/"brush" teeth, read a story, then into bed.  We also stopped putting her in the swaddle sack.  She's just in a regular sleep sack with her arms out.  I think fighting the swaddle may have been causing her to wake up more.  The first few nights of our new routine had some crying but she eventually went to sleep.  We did check ins after 5 minutes and then progressively longer and only had to go in once before she'd settle herself to sleep.  The last two nights she went to sleep with absolutely no crying!  Yay!  It was hard to let her cry a bit but it seems to have worked, or is working!  The night time wake ups have also started to become less frequent.  The first few nights she still got up three or four times.  We made a "rule" that if it was at least 3 hours since her last feed then I'd feed her in the night.  She pretty much followed the 3 hour rule to a tee the first few nights.  The last three or four nights she has only gotten up two to three times.  Last night was particularly good: to bed and asleep by 7:30, up at 11:00 to eat, up at 4:30 to eat, and then up for the day at 7:30.  I'm trying not to get too excited by this as we haven't had much consistency yet.  But it's promising!  Nap times are still inconsistent too.  Although she goes down for her naps at pretty much the same time every day the length of them varies greatly.  She'll nap anywhere from 40 minutes to over an hour and a half.  I do everything the same so I'm not sure what's causing the differences.  She's a happy girl the rest of the time though so she must be getting what she needs!

First Stampede! unimpressed, with George who was equally unimpressed, sleeping while Mom has some Stampede fare