Sleeping Woes

Leah has almost always been an easy baby to get to sleep. She would either fall asleep while taking her bottle, fall asleep in the car right at the beginning of her nap & transfer easily to her crib, or just talk herself to sleep in her crib. This is all changing this week. Apparently now that she's learning so many new things, or maybe because she's teething, or maybe because she's getting the separation anxiety-- I can only guess-- she's getting very difficult to put to sleep. After a couple days of spending almost 45 minutes rocking her, singing to her, (putting her in bed when she appears to be sound asleep in my arms & then rushing out so she doesn't see or hear me), etc., at night & at naps, I'm tired and ready for something to give.

Brett is much better at letting her cry it out than I am. Her cry when I put her in bed & she doesn't want to sleep yet is a loud, lusty cry, that makes her so upset she struggles to catch her breath. It's hard to ignore. But last night, that's what I finally had to do. I have to will myself to remember that this will only last a short time, that she has to learn how to get to sleep on her own, she has to learn that she's not always going to get her way. I never thought this lesson would be harder on me than it is on her! Last night it was about 35 min. of crying, and once Brett went in and talked to her & rubbed her tummy, it was another 5 and then she was asleep. So we're going to keep trying.

Today she did it again at nap time for her preschool teacher. (It is her first day of the summer program, so she has a new teacher, but she's familiar with the surroundings.) I had told Ms. Louise to try to give her her bottle with her lunch instead of before her nap, because this is another goal of mine, but when I went by the room & she was struggling to get her to sleep, I suggested she try the bottle. Apparently, it worked. Of course, I still hate that she relies on the bottle to get to sleep, but we'll take this one step at a time.

So here's the plan for the next 3 months:
1) Get Leah to go to sleep on her own without a lot of rocking.
2) Get Leah to go to sleep on her own without a bottle. And get her bottle schedule to look more like a regular eating schedule, 3 times a day.
3) Get Leah to drink from a sippy cup instead of the bottle.

The other kids in Leah's class, who are just over a year old, all do these things well, so I'm confident that this is all possible with some work.
And just think... we've only got 17 more years worth of problems to figure out...