Lillian had her 10 month birthday last Thursday, I tried to post that day but our internet wasn't working. The last few weeks have been a bit trying to say the least.
Since we returned from Michigan Lily's sleep schedule had been a disaster, getting up 3-5 times a night to breast feed. It didn't matter what we did during the day to help her schedule the nights were the same. For a while she always slept better on the days she went to daycare, making us feel like horrible parents of course. So we attempted to emulate daycare's schedule and so instead of better sleeping at night every night of the week we got horrible nights 7 days a week. Then it got so bad and she was eating so much all night long she completely stopped breast feeding during the day. Colin and I feeling very tired and frustrated did what we had hoped to never, ever do.....
Ferberize. Yep we let her cry it out. The crying would start at 9:30 which had become her typical first waking of the night. We let her cry for what seemed like forever 30 minutes, 45 minutes, and at worse 1.5 hours. Clearly that was not working, nothing was changing; my little Taurus baby was proving her Taurus skills. So instead we combined the
Ferber Method with a combination of many other methods
. She would cry for a while and then I would typically go in and sit with my hand on her face and sing to her- 3 HOURS for the first night. Luckily it was a Saturday night. Now every baby sleep master says you have to try something for 3 weeks to know FOR SURE if it will work. So Colin and I strapped on our boots and were in it for the long haul. So after a very tiresome Sunday we awaited that night to see what changes would come. And sure enough a change did, instead of 3 hours of singing it was 2. Every night continued to get better and better until finally I didn't have to sing I just had to sit next to her and then one night she just didn't wake up in the middle of the night. Now after months of waking every night 4 times a night on average, when your baby doesn't wake up, you unfortunately do and you sit there and you wait for her to cry. Luckily we had 3 whole nights in a row with undisturbed sleep and finally by the third night I slept the whole night through. I was telling Colin that I hadn't slept a full night since mid-pregnancy, which meant really in over a year. When I said that out loud and actually thought about what that meant I was floored that is just rolled off my tongue like it was normal, like everyone wakes multiple times a night. (Now I realize many do wake multiple times a night because nature calls or the typical sleep disturbances with aging and now I can truly empathize with you and I am happy to listen if you want to complain about the frustrations of losing sleep.) Anyways with 3 whole nights of sleep under our belts we were starting to get a little cocky, folks started asking if things were improving and we would reluctantly say 'yes.' The very first day I said yes I had a daunting feeling that I had shot myself in the foot with visions of her waking all night long again because I was bragging by just saying yes. And so, of course that night and the next she awoke......so alas we are back to letting her cry to figure it out and letting her know she is safe and loved by singing and holding her on and off through hours of the night.
With all of that said I would not exchange this year plus of sleepless nights for anything. Our hearts have never danced as they do now when she squeals in excitement, wakes us in the morning by talking to herself in bed, smiles and grabs for us when she sees us, lights up when she discovers something new, claps and cheers when she gets excited, sings along with Colin when he plays the guitar, or coos in comfort when being held and cuddled.
She is loving real food. I rarely have to make pureed food for her any more. She wants what we have. She is even starting to wean herself pretty quickly from breast feeding.....my emotions are so mixed about that. I will save that for a different post. 
