Hallelulah!!!!!

Who slept all night?????? You mean me????

No posts lately because we have been having some SERIOUS sleeping issues at the Cole house the last 2 weeks. Chloe has never been a great sleeper but she was in a pattern if going down about 7:30-8 and sleeping until about 4:30-5 - usually waking up once or twice a night but settling back down easily - within 5-10 minutes. This I could handle but I seem to have an abundance of friends whose babies have slept 12 hours since about 8 weeks causing some serious sleep envy on my part!

But, ever since she was sick a few weeks ago - she got into a pattern of waking every 2 hours or so and wanting to be fed, held, rocked, etc.... back to sleep. So, being the great first time parents we are - git into the habit of laying down with her in her room or ours. Apparently she decided it was way more fun to sleep with Mom or Dad than alone and got to where she would pretty much only sleep well with us.

After a few calls to the dr - they assured me that she does not need to eat at night anymore - we decided we had to bite the bullet and let her cry it out. I've never been able to do this for more than about 5 minutes with her so I was not excited at the prospect. But if you go 8 months without a full night's sleep - and a few weeks with only a few hours a night - you are desperate!
We really wanted to wait until the weekend to try this but decided to start Thursday. ( I don't really remember why now - you lose brain function after so long with so little sleep).

Quick recap - Thursday - she went to sleep as usual - woke up at 2 or 3 (like I said - it's all a blur in the morning) - we let her cry 20 minutes, I checked on her - she went back to sleep for maybe 2 minutes, then cried again for 30 minutes. By this time, i was crying with her and feeling like a horrible parent for traumatizing my chilld this way. I went to check on her and she immediately started laughing and wigglng when i picked her up. I could just hear her thinking "sucker!." I ended up laying down with her and falling asleep until about 5. Then i put her down and she was back up at 5:45 - ok that didn't work - maybe tomorrow...............
That wasn't too quick so I'll make Friday night's recap quicker :)
7:05 - bath, pj's, bottle, 7:15 - asleep
9:00 wake up
9:15 check on her - pat her back, replace paci - still crying
I go back to bed - sure that my life is over and convinced that the only way I'll ever sleep is to hire a night nanny - Chris keeps repeating "no more kids, ever".
9:40
Pick her up - cuddle for 2 minutes - back to sleep
9:42...................................silence...........................
2:00 ............silence........................ is she dead???????? no still sleeping
4:00...............silence........................ dead???? no still sleeping
6:00..............silence.......................still sleeping.......
6:45 - I hear talking
7:00 little cries so i enter and praise her over and over for being such a good sleeper!!!!!!!!! I can hardly stand it - i feel like a new person - i've already emtied the dishwasher, started a load of laundry, made coffee - wow this is what it's like to sleep all night! I tell her over and over how fun it is to sleep all night!!
Now.............. hopefully this is the new beginning for all of us - a world with sleep!!! Update on Saturday night coming...............