The dreaded sleep training post.

It's no secret that Macey is a terrible sleeper. Scratch that: she's a terrible night sleeper. With the exception of the occasional off day here and there, she's always been pretty great at nap time. Know why? Because I worked hard to make sure she was a good napper from her earliest days home with us. With a 3-year-old who needs me too, having Macey nap on my chest or spending 30 minutes rocking her to sleep was simply not an option.

Then there was her night time sleep. It started off pretty good, actually. There was even a time when she was around 3 months old when I remember texting my mom these exact words: "Macey slept 8 hours last night!" I couldn't believe it: I was going to have a baby who slept through the night without sleep training! (If you're a long time reader of my blog, you'll recall that Camden most certainly didn't sleep through the night without sleep training, and he didn't sleep through the night at all until he was about 15 months old).

Yeah-- that 8 hour stretch turned into the exception, not the rule. For a long time, she'd start off the night with a decent stretch-- sometimes 4 hours, sometimes 6 hours-- and then she'd wake every 2 hours after that. I spent most of the night on a mattress on the floor of her room and inevitably she'd end up sleeping next to me at some point in the wee hours of the morning. That led to her sleeping next to me for half the night-- which then led to her sleeping with me for almost the entire night.

Let me be clear: I am not knocking co-sleeping. Not at all. Truly, in an ideal scenario, I'd co-sleep with Macey all night long and we'd both sleep through the night. I sleep more comfortably knowing that my kids are close by. Camden slept with us more often than not until recent months. So, yeah-- I'd say I'm certainly pro co-sleeping-- when both mom and child are actually sleeping.

Macey and I? Well, we were not sleeping. Not much anyway. Our bodies were so in tune with each other that any time one of us moved (which was a lot- I wouldn't describe either one of us as peaceful sleepers) the other would be woken up. All. night. long. And the only way Macey would go back to sleep was by comfort nursing. So, she'd wake every 1-2 hours after an initial 3 hour stretch to start the night and then want to nurse for about 2 minutes before falling back to sleep for another hour or two.

And truly? Even that didn't bother me much. I mean, sure-- it was far from ideal. But I always thought things like, She's my last baby or These days are so short and they will pass and Camden went through this too and he sleeps well now. And all of that is still true.

Then I had kind of an epiphany over the past few weeks. I realized that I wasn't being Super Mom by making a martyr of myself as a walking zombie; instead, I started to feel like I was doing a disservice to Macey by not letting her learn how to put herself to sleep. Why the change in my way of thinking? Well, there was one night in particular that was my turning point. Macey woke about every 45 minutes that night and kept sitting up and crying, rubbing her eyes in frustration. She was exhausted. She wanted to go to sleep. She had no clue how to put herself back to sleep. I really felt like I was depriving her of a pretty necessary life skill.

I made a decision at about 3:30am that night (okay, early that morning): it was time to start sleep training. Which meant that it was time to surrender control and let Matt take the reins. Why Matt? Well, I definitely think that I have a lot of strengths when it comes to parenting my kids, but sleep training is not even close to one of them. In fact, I'd venture to say it's my parenting kryptonite. Matt, on the other hand, is a pretty darn amazing sleep trainer. He has willpower that far surpasses my own in the middle of the night.

We officially started sleep training last night. We don't do cry-it-out in my house; it's just not something that I've ever felt overly comfortable with as a parent. What we're doing is pretty simple and doesn't really follow any of the classic sleep training methods: I put Macey to bed after nursing her, reading her a couple of books, and changing her into her PJs. She goes in her crib awake but drowsy (after months of rocking and/or nursing her to sleep). Fussing is allowed, but if there's hard crying, I return and pat her little booty or just sit with my hand on her back until she falls asleep. No picking her up out of her crib, no eye contact, no talking. After she falls asleep, I go to bed and let the pro take over. Right now, that means that Matt is camping out on the mattress on Macey's bedroom floor. When she wakes during the night, he lays her back down (because she always stands up immediately upon waking) and rubs her back. Again, no talking or removing her from her crib (and clearly, no nursing). Repeat for each waking. Last night went relatively well for the notoriously awful first night of sleep training and I already saw progress when I put her to bed tonight (she went straight to sleep with no fussing).

I know it's a process. Matt knows it's a process. But the important thing here is that we've begun the process. It was time. Here's to many restful nights ahead for the whole family.