Sleep schooling: A mother’s nightmare

I have an hour of some pretty intensive ‘sleep schooling’ behind me and it was absolutely nerve-wrecking and exhausting. Baby has never really slept in her own bed (once or twice doesn’t count) and being 10 months old I think she needs to move from my warm embrace to her own big girl-bed. She cried and cried hysterically while me and daddy tried out different methods. We started with leaving her in her bed and daddy going back to lay her down, tuck her in and give her her snuggie toy with increasing intervals. Three minutes, five minutes, seven minutes… she didn’t stop crying until she had screamed so loud, she lost her breath after 15 minutes. I went in to pick her up and sing her a lullaby, then put her back in her crib. Made things worse. This time I tucked her in, left the room and sat down behind the door so I could see her. Went back in intervals – lay down, snuggie, blanket, say ‘good night’. She did calm down a bit but still cried for mommy and looked like she had no plan of falling asleep. Then I decided to go back and lay her down straight away whenever she stood up. Realized I should lay her down on her stomach – she’s used to sleeping that way. Took me about three to four times (in five minutes) and the little lady started to calm down, gripped her snuggie dog and fell asleep almost instantly.

Can you imagine what a huge victory it was for our family? I do hope she makes it easier on me tomorrow to the point where falling asleep on her own isn’t such a god damn battle (I can’t sit behind the bedroom door and cry with her every single night), because we could all use a decent night’s sleep…