Sweet sleep

Psalm 4:8

"In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
    for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."

Psalm 127:2b

"For he gives to his beloved sleep."

Proverbs 3:24

"If you lie down, you will not be afraid;
   when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet."

Those of you who know us well, or have followed our blog for any length of time, know that we have been blessed with a very precious child in our sweet Caroline, but one to whom sleep did not come naturally!  To give a little of the background here, Caroline was a fantastic sleeper as a newborn.  It was not uncommon for her to give us 5- or 6-hour stretches of sleep at two and three months old.  

And then something happened when she turned four months old.  Suddenly, she started waking up three and four times a night.  She would nurse and go right back to sleep.  We attributed it to her becoming more social and aware of the world around her, or a growth spurt, or teething pain, and figured this too shall pass.  Well it didn't!  Literally since the day that Caroline turned four months old, she has never (not once, not ever, never) slept more than 3 hours in a row.  In fact, most nights she would wake up to nurse anywhere between five and seven times.   It's amazing how you learn to cope with very little sleep!

There have been various times throughout the past year where we have wanted to try some method of sleep training...but there never seemed to be a good time.  Vacations and trips would mess things up, or we would have out-of-town guests in our house, or she would be getting new teeth, or getting over a sickness, and the list goes on.  And there were a few times that we did try, but it just did not work for Caroline.  She can be a very persistent child who knows exactly what she wants ("fellowship with Mommy" as my own mom calls it!).

But finally, last week we decided it was time.  We devised a plan (which we called "Daddy-it-out"...as opposed to "cry-it-out") and got ourselves all psyched up for what we knew would be a few hard nights.  The plan was to just have Luke go to her any and every time that she woke up and cried.  No more nursing all night long, but not leaving her completely alone either.  The first night she was not extremely pleased.  But Luke was able to comfort her each time she woke up, and she seemed to understand when he told her that "Mommy's milk has gone night-night!"  He also placed multiple pacis on her dresser (that she can reach from her crib) and she was starting to figure it out.  The second night she only woke up 3-4 times.  The third night was only 2.  And since then (for a week straight), she has either slept all the way through the night (11.5-12 hours), or has only woken up once, and she goes right back to sleep when Luke goes in there and tells her to lay down.

Success!

We truly were not sure if this day would ever come!  Never again will I take for granted a full-night's sleep, that's for sure.  Now if we could only keep Anna Kate from waking up at 3am asking to come to the "big bed"!  Oh well, one child at a time!