Well I'll be damned....she CAN sleep!

I’m writing this blog about our journey with Emily’s sleeping just in case I give birth to another vampire and want to reference it. :) Emily has never been a sleeper. When I was pregnant, I never could have imagined how bad her sleeping patterns would be. Danny and I were great sleepers, so of course we would have a good sleeper, right?! Wrong. ;)

I’ll start this by giving some background. For the first couple of months, Emily woke up every couple of hours at night to eat. This is not out of the norm for a newborn, so everything was fine. Then, from 2-3 months, she was like clockwork and slept a 5 hour stretch, then 3, then 2, then 1 for a grand total of 11 hours and 3 overnight feeds. Not bad! Literally when she turned 3 months old, she regressed and was getting up every 1-2 hours at night. Occasionally she would give me a 3 hour stretch, but that was maybe once every other day. 3 months turned into 4, which turned into 5, which turned into 6, which turned into 7 with no changes in sight. Needless to say I was exhausted, but oddly enough, around 5 months, my body adjusted to almost no sleep and I didn’t feel physically sick from exhaustion anymore. I prayed for strength to get through this bumpy phase, and God carried me through. There's NO way I could have done it alone, so I'm thankful for his guidance.

During these 4 sleepless months, we tried every method in the books. I was completely against the “cry-it-out” method so I tried my hardest with all of the other methods. None of them worked and in fact, they pissed her off more. Let me tell you about my sweet girl…..the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and she is incredibly stubborn and determined. God really had a good laugh by blessing me with a little me. :) So, when I would do the “checks” or try to soothe her, she was not having it. It got to the point where she could not fall asleep (or back to sleep) without sucking on me or her pacifier. So I was up every 1-2 hours nursing or putting the paci back in.

At 4 months we tried CIO and it did not work. I was not ready, she was not ready, and my heart was definitely not ready. She was my sweet baby, and I could not stand to hear her cry. At 5 months we tried again….and again, not ready. So we pushed on. It made me very sad that at almost 7 months, she did not know how to sleep. I was her enabler and I was doing her no good by picking her up every time she cried at night. She was big enough to do it on her own, and I knew at this point, we were ready to give CIO our all again.

Emily co-slept and bedshared with us for almost 7 months. Night one of CIO was in her room, in her crib. I cried when I nursed her to sleep and put her in the crib for the first time. I knew I wasn’t abandoning her, but it kind of felt that way. I mean, it’s a cool room, a comfy bed and it’s surrounded by love….I kept having to repeat that to myself so I would be ok. So, she woke 3 hours later and cried, fussed, and played for 2 hours and 15 minutes. I checked on her twice, and not to my surprise, it made her more mad. So, I decided no more checks. She only ate twice that night which was progress. Night two was MUCH better, she still woke 3 hours in, but only fussed for 10 minutes and went back to sleep. Now, she does a 6 hour stretch, then a 3, then another 3. That may still not seem good to some, but it’s amazing progress for us.

I feel like a new mommy with the rest I’m getting! For 7 months I was 24/7 on the clock. I didn't mind, but I didn't realize how anxious and stressed it made me. I knew she would be waking at any minute all night and I would have to spring into action again. Putting her down at night and being confident that she is going to sleep for a long time, has done wonders for me. I don't feel stressed out, I don't feel anxious about the dogs or Danny waking her up because she was in our room. It really has made me so grateful.


I honestly would have never done CIO if I had a mildly bad sleeper. It was because Emily had such horrible sleeping patterns AND the fact that she didn’t respond well to anything else, that we did CIO. I do think that CIO is way overused and just a way of getting a “quick fix” to a mild sleeping problem. I feel confident that I put in the work over these 7 months and that I used CIO as a last option.

I hope those reading this have wonderful sleepers and I hope you never have to go through what we have. But just in case you give birth to a vampire..... ;)