A very exciting development

For 10 months now, I have gotten up several times a night with Baby. She has never been a good sleeper. Looking back on it, I suppose she learned bad sleeping habits when her eczema was the worst. Itchy skin makes for a baby that can't sleep. Or it may have been that all the cheese I was eating was making her tummy hurt. Now we know that she can't tolerate cow's milk, even in my diet. Regardless, she never took a pacifier or a bottle, and nothing could ever soothe her back to sleep other than the Boob. At times she would wake 5 or 6 times a night. She often woke more frequently when we were traveling (which was a lot). Even in recent months, when other babies her age were sleeping through the night, she would nurse 2 or 3 times a night.

I've always been terrified of the "cry-it-out" method. I know it works for some families, but that doesn't mean it's easy. It's so horrible and painful to listen to your baby cry hysterically in the night. The few times we tried it I undoubtedly ended up in tears as well.

But now we've done it. One thing we've learned about Baby's personality is that she does things on her own time. Supposedly I was the same way as a child. "I'll learn to do something when I'm ready", that's her motto. We decided to follow the ever-popular "Ferber" plan. Those of you with babies probably know what I'm talking about. This guy, Ferber, sort of invented the method for teaching your baby to sleep (AKA: the cry-it-out method).

I'm not going to get into all the details, but I'll just say this. It worked. And it wasn't horrible at all. I have no doubt it would have been horrible had I tried it on Baby earlier, but she was ready, and I was ready, and together we figured it out.

For 10 months, she cried in the night and got the Boob. It only took 2 nights with some (very little) crying to stop giving her the Boob. And now... (drumroll please)for 2 nights in a row, she has slept, silently, the entire night!

You have NO idea how happy this makes me.