Sleep training-ish

I had planned on writing a section of my thesis this evening, but instead I decided enough was enough and I was going to be really hard-nosed about Phoebe's bedtime. She has been, to put it lightly, an absolute nincompoop when it comes to bedtime. Waking up every ten minutes to yell about...whatever. 

And I'm so over it!

We were successful (in early September) at training her to not require hours of pacing to fall asleep every night. Before then Andrew used to set the (automatic) vacuum on rove and would follow that little machine all around the house with a fussing Phoebe.

But then I was like, "Enough is enough! She can learn this."

It took some doing, but we did get her trained to her mattress. She would lie in her own bed to sleep. For a bit. If she had a grown up nearby to comfort her while she begrudgingly went about falling asleep. And that was a heckuva lot better than pacing the floors with her for hours on end so we called it a win. 

I thought we'd slowly move away from her, Call the Nanny style. One night in her bed, the next night on her floor, then ever closer to the door...

But instead we digressed into spending hours lying next to her, patting her back, and shushing her, and singing her songs while she kicked and cuddled and head-butted and hugged us. It was getting downright obnoxious but we just lived with it because we were in survival mode for the duration of the semester. Sleep training is hard work and we didn't have the time to commit to being...consistent...about it. So we've been hanging onto sanity by a thread these past few months and tonight I decided, "Enough is enough! She can learn this!"

And 2.5 hours of screaming later, she finally seems to understand that if she is still and quiet in her bed, I will sit by her bed to read. But the minute she starts screaming at me or asking for this, that, and the other, I'm outta there and the door gets closed and she gets to howl at no one. It was not pleasant, but it ended with her asleep in her bed (and she should be pretty tired since she was awake (and mostly screaming) from 9 to 11:30 (she had fallen asleep while nursing a little earlier in the night, but that didn't last for long because she doesn't think being put down in her bed is very fair, so when she woke up and realized that's what occurred, well...she had to voice her displeasure)). Here's hoping it lasts for a little while.

Then over the next few weeks I'm hopeful we can start moving farther and farther away from her while she falls asleep. But probably before I wish for that I should hope that she will shorten the time it takes for her to give up and close her eyes. That would be nice. 

Anyway, I'm not writing a section on my thesis this evening, though I did some good refresher reading to thinking about (while reminding Phoebe to stop screaming in my face and maybe I'll want to sit by you a little longer). Rachel is still up working on a cake commission; it's super cute!

And now I'm going to share some family photos!