We are now onto night 5 of our sleep training with Finley. Things definitely got worse before they got better. The first few nights each time she woke up Brian spent 45 minutes trying to soothe her without feeding her. The three of us were quite tired and I was really emotional. We seemed to question our strategy with every sob and tear. And then we saw the light in the darkness. We noticed that once in a while she would calm herself down and fall back asleep without needing to eat. Last night we didn’t have to pick her up at all! She sort of whined a couple times and soothed herself back to sleep! Without a doubt, this has been the hardest thing we’ve had to do as parents so far, but we’re already seeing positive results. I just keep reminding myself that this is the first of many times in parenthood where I will have to put aside my own feelings and do what is best for her. And also that its okay to think about our sleep needs too.

On a lighter note…
Brian and I were laying in bed this morning when I heard a strange noise. I listened for a minute, wondering what on earth it was. We don’t have any pets and I know Finley is swaddled like Houdini in her crib. Finally I got out of bed and followed the noise. It turns out that Finley had wriggled out of her swaddle and was batting at her rain forest player trying to turn it on. She gave me a huge smile, and looked at me like “why isn’t this thing playing?”