If you’re a Facebook or real life friend, you’ve heard way too much about sleep issues in our home. I blogged a bit about it awhile ago too. We’ve been delusional and losing sleep since December.

Yeah. That’s right, 8 months. Our child is only 18 months old. She was a great sleeper in the first half of her life. Then it all went terribly wrong.

In those 8 months we had only 6 full nights of sleep with wake up times ranging between 4:30am and 7:00, never any later. In the last month or so she started screaming bloody murder when we’d lay her down in her crib for naps or night time.  We were taking her for drives to put her to sleep at night and rocking her or bringing her to our bed in the night in hopes to get more sleep. She woke from naps in a screaming panic and was a monster for 30 minutes to an hour after I got her out of bed. I cut the pacifier in a desperate move to save us from her throwing it out across the room and screaming for it. It worked. For one night.

The biggest frustration to me was that there was no rhyme or reason or pattern we could find. And believe me I looked everywhere for a reason. I was well read on sleep patterns and early bedtimes and the importance of sleep. We were strict followers of Babywise with our first daughter. We didn’t want to do the Cry it Out method with Lana. It had always felt so wrong to me this time around and my girls share a room. Besides, there was always something to blame it on: colds, ear infections, molars, eye teeth, travel….

Two weeks ago I borrowed the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child from a friend. I skimmed through all the parts that applied to us and was left thinking Yeah. I know all this. I’ve known it the whole time. It just made me crazy again… trying to find the answer, looking for patterns again. *sigh* I was desperate, not to mention wide awake for two hours on a night she was actually sleeping.

We decided to give Cry it Out a try. It was the only option left. We’d tried being in the room with her or laying on her floor before, but she would scream louder and throw things at us.

We committed one night that we would let her cry. We’d go in and put her blankets and animals back without paying much attention to her. Tell her we love her and it was time for “night night” and leave the room.

The crying started. Mariah came to our room and we made her a bed on the floor.

The crying continued. I went back in 6 times periodically to return blankets and animals, wipe her nose and tell her I loved her.

I lied awake listening to her cry. I surfed the web on my phone to help distract me.

She’d calm down for a bit.

She’d scream louder.

It went on for 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Then it stopped.

She slept until 6:15. Cried for a minute and went back to sleep until 7am. She woke up happy.

Awesome.

We expected we’d have to keep this routine up for a week or two until she was “trained”.

That wasn’t the case. In two and a half weeks since that night of crying, she’s only woken up one night in the middle of the night. She only cried about 20 minutes after we went in to soothe her.

I’m shocked. And I’m relieved. And I’m SLEEPING! Hallelujer!

We’re still working on naps and early morning wake ups. We’ve been leaving her to cry after a quick reminder to go to back to bed for those when she wakes up unhappy or screaming.

She’s my happy girl again. Silly. Funny. Sweet. A joy again. The constant whining is gone and SHE ASKS TO GO TO BED when she’s tired!  What?!

So to the mamas who might be afraid to let their babe cry like I was, it just might work. My little Lana is THE MOST PERSISTENT child I’ve ever met. When she gets an idea in her head, there’s no changing it. At least not easily. But this worked. And it wasn’t so bad after all. We’re kicking ourselves for suffering through 8 months of torture when this seemed so easy.

Thanks to those of you who prayed for us during this hard time. Thanks to those of you who put up with my many many Facebook statuses about my lack of sleep…I’m hoping those are behind us now.