Ellie's Sleep

Another unfinished post from April 2010...


A big difference when you see Ellie now is her face. Besides the fact that I think she's really gotten a lot prettier/cuter, her skin's SO much better than it was just a couple of months ago. Her skin was raw and crusty for months but now that's all gone! It still gets a little bumpy & red from time to time but it doesn't bother her nearly as much. Because she always rubbed and scratched her face, I kept her swaddled literally 90% of the first 4 months of her life. I know, I know. What about her arm development? I didn't know what else to do. Half of each cheek was oozing puss every other day. At her 4 month appointment, her super laid back doctor told me I had to let it go and just let her free. That she should be swaddle free by 5 months. Grrr...

Well, timing sort of worked out. By around 3 1/2 months (100 days), she learned to soothe herself to sleep swaddled with her paci as long as I partially covered her pack n play with a blanket to keep it somewhat dark. So complicated, I know. But there could be 4 toddlers screaming and she's still be able to fall asleep this way. This was HUGE because that was when my mom was in Cali. It was a lifesaver since Maxx wouldn't let me give Ellie more than a minute of attention at a time. So since Ellie could sooth herself to sleep with the whole get up, I figured she was ready to slowly let go of the paci & swaddle. I would've left the paci but she would need it to fall back asleep 2-3 times a night. So around 5 months, I started sleep training her.

It took longer than I expected since she was so good with her paci/swaddle/blanket combo but after 2.5 weeks, she's an even better sleeper! She seemed to know what I was doing just after the first day and was soothing herself to sleep for a couple days pretty well but then she started fighting it like crazy for about a week. I knew I had to hang in there and I'm SO glad I did. At first, it was a TON easier than when I trained Maxx because I knew what I had to do and that it wasn't hurting my kids and it was good for them as well as for each member of the family AND for the family as a unit.

I'm all about kiddies needing their sleep. It's probably because Maxx has a really low tolerance to handle lack of sleep and...

I read the Ferber book with Maxx and this time around I skimmed the Weissbluth one. My sleep philosophy for kiddies is probably a mix of the 2 but Weissbluth's extinction was definitely better for my kiddies than checking on them in intervals. More than anything else, I...