Maybe Matilda: How I Taught My Babies to Sleep

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

How I Taught My Babies to Sleep

As I begin typing this post, Darcy is squawking herself awake from a rather crappy and very short nap, so I am clearly an expert on this topic and you should heed my every word.

Before I get going here, I just want to start with this: we all have our own approaches, the same things don’t work for every mom/baby/family, what works for me may not work for you (and vice versa!), and I hope we can all play nice, okay? I think we’ve all probably heard moms get a little nasty sometimes when talking about this (and similar) topic(s), so let’s all just agree to be kind and respectful and supportive of each other and our parenting choices. If you have something mean to say, feel free to say it in your head. Not in my comments section.

Now that we’ve got that part out of the way, shall we talk baby sleep? I’m convinced there is nothing on earth—NOTHING, I say—more frustrating and exasperating and emotionally/physically exhausting than trying to figure out baby sleep—how to make it happen. How to make more of it happen. How to make it happen at the times of day/night when you want it to happen.

How I taught my babies to sleep . . . one (very inexpert) mom's approach to sleep training.

Before anyone comments on the deathly toys in the crib—I know, I know, they shouldn’t be in there with her. But she loves them. So there you have it. The sleep sack Darcy is wearing here is the Merino Kids Organic Cotton Sleep Sack, sent as a gift for her by Merino Kids. When I first opened the package, I kind of laughed at how outrageously long it is, but now that we’ve used it a while, I actually really love it (and love that it has plenty of room for her to grow! I doubt we’ll ever have to replace it, either because she’s outgrown it or because it wears out—it is very high-quality and well-made). We’ve always used sleep sacks for the kids in lieu of blankets, and have a stash of the inexpensive long-sleeved fleece versions, which are quite pilly and yucky-looking after being handed down through 2 babies so far, so I’m thrilled to have a replacement that is so lovely. The fabric on this one is beautifully soft and high-quality, and although it’s a heavier material, it’s very breathable and has been perfect during the warm weather we’ve had lately.

After talking with a lot of other young mothers, it seems that many babies figure out how to sleep through the night on their own. I guess they just do it all by themselves? These miracle genius babies go to bed at night and don’t wake up until morning and mom doesn’t have to do much of anything to help them figure out how to sleep all night and that’s that? Hmm. That sounds nice. My babies don’t do that. They both had to be forced to sleep through the night. It seems like some babies learn how to do this quite nicely all on their own, and some need to be taught how to sleep through the night. My babies have definitely been the second kind.

I’ve read baby sleep books. I’ve read so so so many baby sleep books. I’m not going to sit here and list them all because A) since I read them all in a sleep-deprived zombie-mother postpartum haze, I doubt I can even recall all the titles, and B) only one book really made a difference for us, so I’ll focus on that one. We tried all the sweet and gentle approaches with no results whatsoever. I’m not saying they don’t work for anyone, but they absolutely didn’t work for us. With some of these very ‘nice’ sleep approaches, the situation even got worse—less sleep, more nighttime wakings, more fussing at bedtime than before. And despite my best efforts at establishing good sleep routines from day one, both Forrest and Darcy followed a really unfortunate pattern of actually getting slowly but steadily worse at nighttime sleep over their first few months. Very exasperating—I don’t know whether to blame myself for doing something fundamentally wrong from the start, or whether my uterus just doesn’t know how to gestate a quality sleeper.

How I taught my babies to sleep . . . one (very inexpert) mom's approach to sleep training.

The book that finally made a world of difference for us (and, I should add, out of all the many books I read, this was the only book that really helped matters at all) was Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems by Richard Ferber. I worry that this will sound like some sort of sponsored thing if I rave about it too much—rest assured, Dr. Ferber has no idea who I am, although if I ever meet him, I fully intend to kiss that man on the mouth.

The basic theory behind the book is simple and straightforward (and, in my opinion, probably exactly what our grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents and everyone who didn’t try to raise babies in our digital age of overbearing, hypercritical, and overly judgmental parenting did): your baby needs to learn to sleep without you. There. Not much to it, right? If they wake up in the night (which they will, because this is normal and natural and everyone wakes up in the night, even you, even if you don’t realize it), they need to have the skills and practice of putting themselves back to sleep without intervention from you. So if you are the lucky parent of babies like mine who were born without those skills (and never figured them out), you have to give them the opportunity to learn those skills. And sadly, this often means there will be some crying. Maybe a little crying, maybe a lot of crying. Either way, it will be sad and hard for both of you, but for me and my babies, it was a necessary evil to teach them the skills they needed in order to give everyone in the family a good night’s sleep.

Step-by-step, here’s what we did (for both babies):

1) Up until 4ish months? Survival mode, folks. Do what it takes to get through that seemingly never-ending sleep-deprived newborn stage. I swear to you, I did my darnedest to try and set good habits during this stage and it never seemed to make an ounce of difference. (Which isn’t to say one shouldn’t try . . . just that my babies don’t seem to understand how sleep works.)

2) I have heard that 6 months is a good age to begin sleep training. I couldn’t make it that far. Between 4 and 5 months with both babies, I hit my breaking point and just went gung-ho into sleep training. Maybe waiting longer is better. I couldn’t do it.

3) Establish a bedtime routine. In our house, this means taking a bath, putting on lotion, getting Darcy into a clean diaper and jammies and zipping her up in a cozy sleep sack, and nursing in the rocking chair. (Forrest was bottle-fed; otherwise, his routine was the same at this age.) I claim that the kids’ bedtime is 7, but it usually ends up being closer to 7:30. (Forrest usually gets up between 6 and 6:30, and Darcy gets up between 7 and 7:30 in the morning.)

4) Lay baby down while she is drowsy but still awake. The key is that she has to be falling asleep on her own, in the same circumstances that she’ll find herself in when she wakes up in the night (ie, not in my arms, not nursing, not being rocked, etc.). So when she is sleepy and maybe looking like she’s close to drifting off, but definitely still awake, lay her down.

5) Put in earplugs, because it’s about to get ugly. Ferber recommends checking in at intervals to reassure yourself and baby that everything is okay . . . but don’t go in there and put baby to sleep. I would go in, give her a kiss, rub her belly for a moment, talk to her, etc., but leave while she was still awake. The howling starts up stronger than ever as soon as I leave, but the point of returning to her room isn’t to comfort her to sleep. It’s just to reassure both of you that you’re still there, you still love her, and she’ll survive, but she has to do this part on her own.

6) When baby wakes up in the night, do the same thing—check in periodically, but don’t help baby fall back asleep. Just offer a bit of comfort and leave while baby is still awake. These first few nights will be loooooooooooooong.

7) For naps, follow an abbreviated bedtime routine (for us, it is simply putting baby in a comfy sleep sack and nursing before laying her down). If baby hasn’t fallen asleep within 30 minutes, get her up and try again later.

In my experience, the first night is brutal, the second night is slightly better, the third night slightly better still, and within about a week they are more or less good to go! They will still have the occasional ‘off’ night, and traveling or sickness might mess with things, but once they have learned the necessary skills to soothe themselves and put themselves to sleep without much help from you, it isn’t too tough to get them back into proper sleep mode if they should get out of their normal sleep routine for whatever reason.

How I taught my babies to sleep . . . one (very inexpert!) mom's approach to sleep training.

A few more thoughts:

- Forrest and Darcy both sleep better with fans running rather noisily in the room. I think my family probably snickers quietly whenever we all get together and I show up lugging a gigantic box fan for the kids to sleep next to, but hey, it helps! And I love that the white noise blocks household noise—I don’t feel like I have to tiptoe around the house while they’re asleep since the fan covers up any noise I might make.

- Darcy really seems to benefit, sleep-wise, from having toys in the crib with her. I know you’re not supposed to have anything in the crib with baby, but man, she loves having snuggly toys to cuddle with. Whenever I peek in at her in the night or during naps, she is always snuggling with something—she really seems to find those toys comforting. And when she wakes in the night, I have sometimes heard her laughing and playing with her toys for a while before falling asleep again without crying. So I guess this is something you’ll have to consider and decide on your own, with the knowledge that extra items like toys in the crib are not recommended, but may be helpful if your baby is a snuggler or might entertain herself and put herself back to sleep if she has something in there to keep her occupied. My babies also both love(d) watching themselves in those crib mirrors that tie onto the crib slats (a little entertainment value with less risk, since it secures to the crib).

- When I started sleep training Forrest, I took away the pacifier. My logic was that he didn’t yet have the coordination to put it back in his mouth during the night, so I didn’t want him to rely on it to fall asleep since he might wake in the night and need it to fall back asleep, but wouldn’t be able to replace it himself. He very quickly switched to sucking his fingers—a habit that continues to this day, and I suppose time will tell if this was a bad trade-off. I did the same for Darcy, but reintroduced the paci after maybe a month or two of sleep training since she seemed to really miss it, and it hasn’t been a problem (maybe because she was a little older when I gave the paci at nights, and she has the dexterity to put it in her mouth when she wakes?). I clip one paci to her sleep sack (making sure to clip it quite low so it just barely reaches her mouth—I don’t want slack in the ribbon that could be a strangulation hazard), drop another paci in the crib, and she also has one stuffed animal with a paci attached. When I peek in at her at night, she’s just as likely to be sucking any of the three paci options, and sometimes none of them.

- I found nighttime feedings a little tricky to navigate . . . I think 1 nighttime feeding for a 4/5 month old is probably reasonable, so I continued to feed both Forrest and Darcy just once in the night while sleep training. Forrest dropped this feeding on his own within a few weeks of beginning sleep training—yay! Darcy did not—boo. When she was about 6 months old (and pushing the 90th percentile for height and weight, leading me to believe a nighttime feeding was more preference/habit than necessity), I cut that feeding out and just let her cry when she woke expecting to eat. This is also when I reintroduced the pacifier for her at night—she seemed to not mind too much, and really only cried one or two nights, and not for a very long time. I suppose the paci satisfied her when she wanted to eat.

All right. That’s all I’ve got for you today. I’d love to hear your experience with sleep training—what worked or didn’t work for you and your kids? It’s such a tricky, guilt-ridden, difficult part of parenting babies, and I’m always interested in learning how other moms handle it.

33 comments :

  1. This could not have come at a better time. For realz. We are diving in next week with our almost 5 mo old. Doc said six mo but that is right before a vacation and when I go back to work...yeah no. I have this book next to my bed, have already read it a few times and have just been waiting. Thanks for reading my mind!!

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  2. So this post has me thinking... Before I haven't wanted to do sleep training, but these last few weeks have me rethinking my decision. A little background - my Ellie is 7.5 months old and is bottle fed. I teach preschool and am now on summer break. She took great naps at child care but it was in a swing. She has been in her crib at night since 6 months. She sleeps ok, occasionally through the night but never two nights in a row. I should say I have held her a lot for naps when I am at home - possibly out of my working mama guilt!

    Now cut to summer break. She had her first cold last week with a tooth coming through so I held her even more. That included many nights sleeping on the couch. So now she will hardly sleep in her crib for naps and at night is waking more frequently. Should I ride out this cold/tooth combo and be in survival mode or should I try to get her to sleep in her crib? We are also going to the lake next week so I know the routine is going to be way off.

    Sorry for the book of a comment. I just feel so much anxiety from this situation. Part of me wants to just hold her and cuddle her if she needs me because pretty soon she will be independent and I won't get as many snuggles. The other part of me worries about bad habits that I am creating and there are days I want to get something done - imagine that! Thanks for any advice and letting me vent. :)

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  3. Having a child who can go to sleep without you is so important. Whenever I'd be tempted to rock or nurse the little one to sleep, I'd think back to college. My roommate babysat a two year old who could NOT get to sleep without nursing. Obviously, as a babysitter this is something she couldn't do. So every time she babysat this kid she'd have to hold and rock them while they screamed bloody murder for several hours, until working themselves into a frenzy and exhaustion. Mom apparently really wanted to wean, but couldn't handle the crying and it was just "so much easier" to nurse him to sleep every night. Obviously an at least slightly extreme example, but I babysat other kids with similar issues; had to be mom to put them to sleep. Made it very rough to find repeat babysitters.

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  4. Awww, this sounds rough :-( I'm sorry you're dealing with sleep problems! And I can totally understand wanting to hold and cuddle her--I often feel the same way with Darcy and sometimes have to convince myself that I ought to lay her down instead of just snuggling her while she sleeps! If I were in your shoes, I think I would probably wait for the cold/teething/vacations to pass before starting with sleep training . . . my guess is that it will go more quickly and smoothly if things are more normal. But if you are at your wits' end, then you might as well just go for it, I suppose! Just my two cents. Good luck!!!

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  5. Great post! I followed a very similar method for getting my 3 boys to sleep! It works! I am a total zombie when I don't get enough sleep, not to mention mean, so it was a necessity to get those kids sleeping good and fast! Thanks!

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  6. My oldest is 39 and youngest is 33 (both boys) so I fall into the Grandparent pre-digital category you mentioned in this post. Our first son, Philip, was sleeping through the night at little past one month of age. Were we geniuses, no. Was he a genius, WE thought so but probably not. He reached a time when he would wake up crying and after several instances of having been fed recently, not being poopy or wet, not sick, not head wedged in a weird position, so we decided to just let him cry to see what would happen. It progressed very quickly into not making a peep all night long. I sat bolt upright the first morning this occurred convinced he had succumbed in the night. He was absolutely fine, happy and perfect. Towards the end of my second pregnancy with Travis, I had thoughts of dread thinking this one was going to be the opposite. I feared I would look up from my birthing bed to see the doctor holding a two headed demon and spanking him on his fork-tailed bottom! SO not true as he was adorably sucking contently on his two middle fingers fresh out of the oven! As luck would have it, we were blessed with an exact re-run of Philip! I don't know why other than dumb luck. I am a ridiculously calm person and hubby is Mr Happy Go Lucky. Is this a sure fire combo for newborn nirvana? I think it might have something to do with it but I'm sure there are a ga-zillion other parents that have had similar personalities that weren't as fortunate as we were. Don't hate me.......

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  7. Wow! Lucky mama. I don't hate you . . . but I am definitely jealous :-)

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  8. Very good point! I've loved nursing Darcy, but one downside is that she absolutely refuses to take a bottle, so even though she doesn't nurse to sleep, it's still really difficult to leave her with a sitter since she won't take a bottle!

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  9. This is such a great post!! I was one of the lucky moms that had pretty good sleepers from the beginning. Please still be my friend ;) But this is an informative post to help moms that might be going through this! After Harper was born I kept saying she was lucky to be the second baby because she always wanted a blanket to sleep with and snuggly animals too and definitely slept better with them - I would NEVER have let Wil have them until a year old haha. She didn't like to be swaddled and I finally found a sleep sack that worked for her but she out grew it fast. The pacifier thing... yeah well Harper still has hers for naps & bedtime and if her daddy gets her up whenever she wants it *sigh*... did I mention she will be 2 in August - I plan to break that habit then.

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  10. You speak the truth! We did the same thing. Started them on bedtime routines from day 1 home from the hospital. Honestly, I was fairly blessed in that they never were big "criers"...but they did have their fussy moments. When I'd hear them on the baby monitor at night, hubby would just reassure me that they're not dying, and would be fine, LOL! We did the peeking in at intervals, but I tell you, just like you said...once you start this method, it works like a charm. I've always believed that baby need his/her own bed...and mommy/daddy need their bed. It's safer, everyone sleeps better, and we're all happier for it. Bravo on this post!

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  11. Just wanted to say I used Merino Kids sleep sacks for my 2 babies. Awesome product! I had the heavier weight ones for winter too.


    I was pretty strict when it came to bed routine and followed your exact same protocol. It really does work. Mine slept through the night from 2 months of age. Usually there was a 5 or 6 am feed and then they'd sleep on til 8 or even 9! At 6 or 7 months there was no early morning feed, they would sleep through from 7pm til 7 or 8am. My kids are now 6 and 4 and still sleep from 7pm til 7 or 8am. I know I'm one of the lucky ones, but I also know that sticking to the routine does work.


    I had the odd occasion to have to sit it out while they howled the house down. Not pleasant. Ian and I would get tetchier and grumpier at each other as the enraged crying grew ever louder. A little tough love at this stage goes a looong way.


    Best of luck to all you mums out there struggling with this. :)

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  12. I'm glad to hear that "just riding out" the first few months isn't a disaster. I definitely let my daughter nurse to sleep more often than I should.

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  13. Great post! I think that every parent has to figure out a sleep routine that works for them. We did something similar for Henry when he was little. And it helped A LOT. He has regressed majorly since moving to a big boy bed (SOB!). So we are actually doing this procedure almost again. Hopefully at some point he will actually go to sleep without screaming that we leave him. Ugh. Break my heart.

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  14. we've done the same thing with our first two, and our third is 3 months old and i'm seriously counting down the days until i can let him cry it out!

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  15. So glad you found something to work for you! My babies have been pretty good sleepers, but I definitely had to put some work into it. I like help-books. Sometimes it can be overwhelming with so many out there, but I find that as I read more, I take bits and pieces from each that ring true to me and apply them where I see fit. For us Babywise was great. With Crue I took it way too structured and strict, it worked, but I was a little too stressed at times. With Maddy, I took pieces from The Baby Whisperer and a much looser approach to Babywise combined and was so much happier with life in general!! Both slept through the night by 9 weeks. My hat's off to you because by TWO months I have reached my limit of sleepless nights!! I haven't read Ferber's book but I have heard some good things about it. I totally agree with all that you mentioned. I feel like there are Baby Sleep Principles that seem to be consistent in the sleep training approaches that work. One is definitely putting the baby down when they are sleepy but not asleep yet!

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  16. My baby-sleep experience is almost identical to yours. Before kids, I thought "sleep-training" was cruel and I would never let MY baby "cry it out". Yeah, whatever--it works--and in both of my kids' cases was necessary. Some kids are born good sleepers, but mine were not--but they are now. Preach on, sister.


    I can't remember anything from before I was about three or four years old--I think that God in His wisdom gave us as parents this grace-period so we have time to ease into parenting...so we can do things like "sleep train" without too much harm done. ; )

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  17. Ugh sleep. I'm just like the mom of that two-year-old mentioned by another commenter--the one who can only fall asleep by nursing. It's not ideal, and maybe I'd like to wean? I don't know, because there are a lot of things I like about it, too. Overall, despite drawbacks, I don't mind too much. Even though the sleep situation isn't ideal, it is manageable and sustainable for us, so we just keep on doing it this way. Though sometimes, I really wish I could have been like you, or grow the chops to become like you: it's so courageous to stick to a plan and see it through enough to work, even though the process can be really tough. I tried to sleep train Shep out of desperation at one point, but I just couldn't handle the crying and I wasn't committed to a plan and I wasn't sure what would work for him. it seemed easier to deal with night-waking, co-sleeping, night-nursing, etc. Sigh. I doubt myself all the time about whether I should do something drastic to change these habits that have got to be way more instilled by this point (almosttwo years later), and I wonder how sustainable this will all be when we add another kid to the mix (I fear it won't be and that I'll have to seriously problem-solve and actually do my duty as a parent to be the firm authoritative one?) . . .

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  18. I find this whole kid sleeping thing fascinating. I have always questioned why my family members have instantly jumped as soon as the kid made a peep. (Granted, the whole screaming baby not being my own makes it more tolerable...sort of.) But it's really easy to parent when you don't have a kid. ;)

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  19. So jealous you got good sleepers! And ditto on second babies--I NEVER put anything in Forrest's crib, and even when he got attached to his blankie around age 1, I was really worried about letting him bring it to bed. I guess you loosen up a little when another baby arrives ;-) When do 'they' (whoever 'they' are) say you're supposed to get rid of pacifiers? Forrest sucks his fingers so I've never dealt with it before, but Darcy LOVES her paci.

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  20. Why is it so much easier for husbands to handle/ignore the crying?!

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  21. So tough to listen to. But it makes it easier when you know they've been through it before and they'll survive/thrive with it!

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  22. YES. I had a mental countdown for those first few months before I could sleep train Darcy. Moms of newborns totally understand how sleep deprivation is used as a torture technique.

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  23. 9 weeks?!?!?! Geez. If only my kids caught on to it that quickly! It's rough, but I'm just glad we've found something that works for us (and also glad that no one has left any mean comments on this post--I'm a little surprised, to be honest, I figured *someone* would have something judgmental to say!). And good for you being able to pick and choose the things you agree with in help books--I tend to take them way too personally and get wounded when something doesn't work. My (very smart!) attitude about it isn't so much, "Ok, well that didn't work for us," but instead it's, "WHAT'S WRONG WITH US THAT WE COULDN'T MAKE THIS WORK?!"

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  24. Hahahaha. Yeeeessss, I was also quite the expert and very sensitive parent before having kids. And I think you're on to something there with the lack of early memories!

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  25. Would it be possible to sleep train without weaning? (If you still wanted to breastfeed but didn't want to continue at night/naps?)

    If it works for you and everyone is happy with the current situation, then I suppose you shouldn't feel the need to change anything. But you do have a point with adding more children to the mix--what is sustainable right now probably wouldn't be ideal if you were up with TWO kids in the night. Sleep training is a lot easier to handle if you have a definite plan/course of action to commit to. It's hard when you aren't positive what you want to do and what you want the outcome to be--then it just feels like crying and emotional pain for no reason. Good luck to you guys!

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  26. When it's someone else's kid crying, it's irritating. When it's YOUR kid crying, it is TORTURE.

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  27. I swear, I tried to set good habits early on. Maybe that makes a difference for some babies, but I don't think it helped much with mine since we ended up having to sleep train anyway. Those first few months are so hard--I say, do whatever you have to to get through it!

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  28. Glad to hear you had such great success with your kids! Running on no sleep is way too hard to deal with long-term.

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  29. This is the same method we used, but I managed to hold out until 9 months with both kids. My daughter was sleeping through the night, but getting her to go to sleep was a long ordeal. I blame letting her sleep in the rock-n-play until she was 8 months old. Oops. She still fights going down for naps and fusses occasionally at bed time.


    With my son, sleep training worked like a gem after only 2 nights. It just depends on the baby!

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  30. 9 months! You are a stronger woman than I am.

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  31. Corbin was one of the awesome babies who just magically started sleeping through the night at like 6 weeks, but Reli was a whole different story. She was one of those that liked to be held, but you weren't allowed to sit down, so you spent most of the night just pacing around the house. We eventually went the cry it out route, but it was definitely not fun for anyone - especially living in a 1 bedroom apartment. Boo! Good thing I'm not planning to do any of that craziness again!

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  32. Good think you had one of each, because I might have gotten annoyed if you were blessed with TWO awesome sleepers.

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