sleep training---here goes nothing!

For the past month or so, Cadence has gotten into the habit of not sleeping very well at night.  You might remember me trying the Sleep Lady Shuffle method at the end of the year, and although it worked for a couple of nights, it never really seemed to help Cadence progress--she still wanted to wake up to eat at night, she still would get upset, never really managed to fall asleep on her own, etc.  It may have been just that the shuffle takes so long to implement, and that in the course of its implementation she got her first teeth and had some sick issues....but it just didn't seem to be the right fit.  So a few days ago I decided we should go for the modified "cry it out" method by Dr. Ferber, where you check on them at increasing intervals of time, to let them know that you are there and they have not been abandoned, but also so that they will eventually stop crying because they know that all it will get them is a quick "hi and bye" from mom or dad. 

We started Friday night, and let's just say it was pretty horrible.  She cried for about an hour, and then woke up a little while later and cried again--I was very confused as to the time since we don't have a visible alarm clock at night -.- but in short, she cried a lot, and it was pretty hard on me.  I prayed and prayed and prayed that God would strengthen us both and just listened to Him to tell me when I needed to go comfort her.

Last night I put her down later than normal (9:15 because of the basketball games), checked on her once at 9:30, again around 9:50, and she stopped crying before my next timed check.  Yay!  She woke up before 6 the next morning, but from what I've read that's pretty normal when starting this process. 

Tonight I put her down at 8:00, after changing up the nighttime routine slightly by feeding her and then reading her a book, and putting her down not fully asleep.  She hasn't woken up yet, and hasn't cried at all, so I'm hoping that this process is complete (might be wishful thinking!) and she's been successfully sleep trained. 

Today we went to early church since James couldn't make it to late church, and it seemed to gel with her morning schedule a little better than late church--although the nap situation is still tough to figure out on Sundays.  She also tried plums for the first time, and had her first "medley"--yellow squash and peas together.  She really loved them, and then finished with some more plums for dessert--this girl was hungry for supper!  It's good to see her with a good appetite because I feel like at the past few meals she's been really distracted and just rubbing her eyes and nose all the time and not wanting to eat too much.