Sleep is overrated

As I type this post, this is what I see when I look down. A little girl sleeping peacefully on my lap after a long night of waking up every hour. While Grace has never been a great sleeper (her longest stretch to date was 4 hours and she only did it a few times) we reached a new low this week when we tried to transition her from a swaddle sleep sack to a regular sleep sack.



Summer brand fleece sleep sack - what we've been trying to transition to.


G in her Halo brand fleece sleep sack with built-in swaddler.

The issue we're running into is that G's Moro Reflex is still strong and her flailing arms wake her up. We tried lying her on her back, sides, and even tummy, since we have an Angelcare monitor. Nothing has worked.

I hear that there are children her age and younger who are able to sleep through the night. Who are these kids and what are their parents doing differently, I wonder? I think the key element we're missing here is the ability to self-soothe. Since birth I've been nursing Grace to sleep, and then back to sleep web she wakens in the night. I believed, and still do, that this is the right thing to do for a baby her age. She's little and I want her to know her mom is there to comfort her. Recently I've been getting some pressure from my mom and others to begin "Ferberizing" (aka the "cry it out method") her ASAP, but frankly I'm not comfortable taking this approach until she's at least 6 months old. Actually, I'm not really sure how much I agree with the method at all. Several experts, including Dr. Sears, are strobly against the Ferber method of sleep training.

I think I need to read up more on this subject before I make my next move. For now I'm just going to have to tough it out and be thankful Mr. E gets up early on the weekends with Miss No Sleep so I can get some much-needed shut eye.