adventures in sleeping.

We've officially made the transition to Cadence sleeping in her crib, and although the first night was rough, the second night went much more smoothly.  It seems like once a week she has one night when she just can't seem to fall/stay asleep, and this night was one of the worst yet.  There was a large storm that came through, so the dogs were on edge and whining, Cadence was overtired and restless, and James and I were just plain exhausted.  She did finally fall asleep around 2am, but by that time had gone almost 8 hours without some quality sleeping time.

Given that difficult night, I decided to crack open a book given to me by another campus mom about babies and sleep, and some of the things I read really helped us out the next night.  I usually only put her down if she's completely out, but this book said to try to put her down when she's drowsy yet awake so that she learns to soothe herself to sleep.  We've also recently introduced the pacifier, and that has helped soothe her without me needing to nurse her.  Last night she fell asleep around 11, woke up at 4, and then was up until 7:30 and fell asleep again until 10:30.  I was completely exhausted around 7, so I was thrilled that she got another long sleeping stretch in this morning.  Today has seemed more normal, as she is eating only every 2 hours or so and taking more frequent naps.