Our Sleep Training Journey :: Day 10

I honestly didn't think I would make it this long.  Don't get me wrong, it is challenging hard, really hard.  Natalie has done a great job learning to sleep, but the challenge comes in getting up to the alarm at all hours of the night during this weaning process. I just don't want to do it.  I want to sleep as long as she does.  I want to  feed her when she wakes up at 5:00.  The only thing that keeps me going is my memories, I remember that we've been down that path before.  I went back to work when Natalie was eight weeks old and she was only waking for her 4 am feeding.  Fast forward 6-7 months and we were waking at least three times a night, sometimes as often as every hour throughout the night.  I do not want to go back there, ever.  So I keep pressing on, however I now must enlist help from Ryan.  I am starting to hit snooze or flat out sleep through my alarm for the scheduled dreamfeed.  So I have asked Ryan to set his alarm and make me get out of bed.  We are getting so close (insert wishful thinking font here) to sleeping for long stretches and I must press on.

Last night looked quite similar to the past few nights:

8:00 - Natalie was in bed. There was minimal fussing, but lots of playing with the six pacifiers in her bed
8:12 - Asleep.

10:30 - Dreamfeed before I went to bed

3:00 - Start of alarm sequence - which continued until 4:30 when Natalie fussed and I cursed myself for not getting out of bed at the scheduled time.  If I had just gotten up, she probably wouldn't have woke up! She cried off and on for 13 minutes

4:50 - Went in to dreamfeed Natalie, she had been quiet and still for 7 minutes so I assumed she had gone back to sleep.  When I opened her door, she sat right up - ugh!!  I fed her, but kept her awake.  She ate for 3 minutes, I put her in bed awake and she went right back to sleep.

7:30 - Natalie began stirring, but kept going back to sleep
7:50 - Up for the day (yes I was late to work this morning)

It is a good thing that I keep being reminded to look 'on paper' to see our progress.  I can see it on paper, I am more tired than ever so I don't feel it.  If someone would have told me 10 days ago that Natalie would soon only get up once/night I would have been ecstatic.  I need to remember that perspective to keep motivated to do this.  This is short term, even if it takes a month (written with pleading, "please no" undertone here).  When we're done she will know how to sleep and that is a lesson that will help all of us for the long term future.