Sleeping All Night

Josh and I felt we were pretty lucky when Harper started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks old.  As I have mentioned in previous posts, I think having a larger baby, using pampers baby dry, and being swaddled all helped. 

Then, around 4 months old, she started waking up almost every 2 hours. What is going on?!?! She slept better than that when she was a newborn.  I read a few books that said babies that babies that sleep through the night at an early age will stop around 4 months b/c they are very aware of their surroundings.  They are also aware that they fell asleep somewhere other than where she woke up, i.e., my arms and not the crib! 

Since we were in the middle of breaking her swaddle habits, we thought that was the problem.  Well, once she seemed used to not being swaddled, she still woke some. It was easy to blame it on her arms being out...but I felt it was something more. So after consulting the baby books again, Josh and I decided we were going to let her "cry it out" at bed time and let her learn to self sooth. 

We decided to start off slow and for the first two nights...she cried for about 20 minutes off and on.  Once it got intense, we would get her and rock her to sleep.  Again, we werent ready to try the full "cry it out" b/c we wanted her to get used to not being swaddled.  Then, on the third night, she just kind of fussed a little and talked herself to sleep.  We couldn't believe it!! We are now on day 5 of this and it is working really well.  Harper now only talks to herself and fusses for about 6-8 minutes and is then sound asleep!  We are all happy to be getting a good night sleep again!!

(first thing in the morning)

I video taped our monitor of Harper fussing/talking ... just to give you an idea of what it is like.
she is backwards in the crib for naps...I dont know why i do that.

I know I have been posting about sleep a lot lately...but I want to keep record of all of this for furture children!