Sleeping Woes

The pediatrician recommended I lower her crib mattress because she is likely to pull herself to standing soon. She is still sleeping in bed with us, though. I have has a dilemma because I always planned to start moving her to the crib when she turned 6 months, but I am not as comfortable with the idea as I thought I would be at this point. We are going to gradually move into it when it feels right for our family. The doctor had to "remind" me of all the dangers...

She has been waking up at night for a feeding, and the doctor said I have to cut out all middle-of-the-night feedings. And I have to regulate her bedtime and wake time more. She has set herself her own schedule of going to bed at 10, waking up at midnight for a feeding, and then sleeping until about 5:30 am for another feeding, then another at 9:30 and she wakes up for the day at around 10:30/11. That schedule works out perfectly for me! Unfortunately, that midnight feeding has got to go. It was recommended that I wake her up earlier in the day to get her to go to bed earlier at night, but she made up for the early wake up by catnapping all day long!

Two nights ago was the big night. I fed her at 9:30 and she fell asleep after eating, but she woke up an hour later! She wanted to eat to get back to sleep with the breast but I wouldn't feed her (I knew she wasn't really hungry) and so... she put herself to sleep!!!! It took until 11:45 before she fell asleep but she did it. She did it with just a little fussing, but it happened-and that's all that matters. J will sleep through everything, so he wasn't any worse for wear in the morning.

We have decided that we're just going to have to pick our battles. If cutting out the midnight feeding is more important, then we're going to do it. And teaching her to fall asleep for the night without eating-we can do that, too. And if we can do all that while she sleeps with us, then we'll all be happy. If eventually it leads to the crib, then fine. I have talked to a lot of people about both crib sleeping and co-sleeping, read a lot about co-sleeping, and this just works with our family. You never know what you yourself will do until you are personally dealing with a situation. We are taking each day as it comes.

Update: Last night she slept from 10 pm until 8 am!!!! Yay!