Sleep!

Finally! We have a sleeping monkey!

Things came to a head with the whole sleep thing a couple of weeks ago. The monkey went through a bad bout of teething, and reverted back to an almost newborn sleep cycle. 4, 5 even 6 bouts of waking a night and the only way to get her back down was boob... Not that she actually ate anything. She just sucked until let-down then pulled off. Cheeky monkey!

I was a zombie, the DIY enthusiast as a mess and the little one was quite merrily getting by on about 6 hours a night. Not good for anyone. After a lot of research and "advice", we settled on a mix of controlled crying and the gradual retreat method.

We would put her down awake after her last milk feed at 8.30pm. We let her grizzle, but if she cried hysterically would pick her up, comfort her and put her back down when she settled. The first 2 nights were hell. She woke every 2 hours. We took it in turns sleeping on the sofa so at least one of us could get some rest.

On the 3rd night she slept for 12 hours straight! Not a peep. She has slept every night since! It's only been a week, but I am optimistic. She will be 1 in a few weeks and has been doing great with the solids, so maybe she was just ready anyway. Who knows? All I can say for sure is that I was definitely ready. Fingers crossed she keeps it up!