Bedtime Friends

Since our weekend was anything but note-worthy, I'm skipping a recap and jumping right into our short (!!) week! We've been through so many ways trying to get Savannah to sleep since she's been here.  Background: when she was first here, she would sleep through feedings if I didn't wake her up.  Then she had the UTI which led us to find the Hydronephrosis, which led her straight into colic (really I am sure they are unrelated to the colic but it all blended together in my opinion) and she started to HATE sleeping and would only do so if we would face her outward and bounce her on a yoga exercise ball for hours and finally be able to transfer her to her swing.  Then for a while we had to sleep in her room with her so she could hear us and I guess didn't feel lonely.  Then she slept in her carseat in our room for about 2 months.  Then we had to push the stroller around the house with her in it for about a month before transfering her to the crib.  [All of the previous had to happen while we sang our favorite song, Wheels On The Bus. See post here.]The most recent thing is us driving her around our 10 minute "loop" as we call it to get her to sleep in the carseat then carrying her to her crib.  Well the past three nights that has not worked and we have tried something new! Since Birc and I were suffering severly from the stomach virus we knew we might not physically be able to get to her in the night as quickly as normal, since she wakes up still at night, and we did not want her to feel abandoned or lonely. (If you know me, you know where she gets this "lonely" feeling from) I decided to put some of her stuffed friends in her crib with her for when she woke up.  Well it has been a total hit! She loves them being in there and she cuddles with different ones all night! It is really helping her go back to sleep on her own without one of us going in there to soothe her back to sleep.  She has always slept with Flopsy, but apparently the more the merrier!

 The way we get her to sleep is, after she nurses, I put her in the crib and then Birc sits in there and says "shh" for a few minutes and she goes right to sleep with basically no crying at all! In the past if we would put her in the crib while she was still awake (and we either left the room or stayed in there) she SCREAMED at the top of her lungs until we would take her out.  I am so happy with this progression! It has been a slow process getting this girl to sleep and we are not through the woods yet but this is such an improvement. 

[Obviously these aren't from bedtime but after her bath I popped her in to snap some pics!]