Peek-a-Boo, Standing, and Sleep Training

Here's a video of Harper's newest "trick" playing peek-a-boo with her shirt. :-) (please ignore my high-pitched voice and Handley whining in the background - she was having a hard time at the end of a long day)



And here is another one of her other new skill, pulling up and standing on EVERYTHING. The girl does not sit down anymore and every time she stands up she likes to look at us and laugh, like she's saying, "Well would you look at me...I'm standing up!"

Now onto a somewhat related subject - SLEEP TRAINING.  Harper used to be a GREAT sleeper.  I could lay her down awake, she'd suck her thumb and fall asleep, took great naps, and slept 12 hours at night.  Well all of that changed about a month ago when she started to try to pull up.  Every time I'd put her in the crib she would start trying to stand.  I would usually end up rocking her to sleep so that she would quickly fall asleep, take her nap, and then we could get on with the rest of our day.  I ruined her!!!  I know I did it and take complete blame.  Our rocking sessions were getting longer and longer(which I didn't mind because I love holding and rocking her, but I was starting to feel bad for Handley because the time I spent trying to get Harper to sleep was time that I felt like I was ignoring her) and often times she'd wake up as soon as I would lay her down so I had to get her up and start all over again.  During the night she went from sleeping 12 hours (from 7:30 PM to 7:30 AM) to being up 3-4 times a night!  Worse than when she was a newborn.  This weekend I decided it was time and knew it had to be done - SLEEP TRAINING.  I wanted to do it before it got any more out of hand and know the longer I waited the harder it would be.  Saturday I tried letting her cry-it-out (CIO) for her naps and let's just say it wasn't successful.  Now I truly know what people mean when they say every kid is different.  CIO may seem cruel to some of you, but it worked like a charm for Handley.  She did lot like to be held or cuddled when she was falling asleep and just needed to be put in her crib.  Harper is a different story though.  She loves to be cuddled and is super attached to me.  After Saturday's failed attempt I read a lot of stuff online and decided to try a different method with Harper called the Sleep Lady Shuffle.  Basically you put a chair by their crib and for 3 days/nights you put them to bed and help soothe them to sleep (shhing, patting their back, reassuring them you are there, etc.).  Then the next three days you move your chair away from the crib, but still in the room by their door.  The next three days you move it right outside the door and supposedly after that they have learned to fall asleep in their own.  The first time I tried this it took 50 mins for her to fall asleep.  She kept standing up, trying to get me to play and pick her up, but every time I laid her back down and told her to go night-night.  Finally after what felt like the 100th time, she stayed down and went to sleep.  During the night the first night she only woke once.  Even though I knew it would have been much easier to rock her back to sleep I stuck to my guns and soothed her without picking her up - only took 20 mins.  Today went really well for both naps and for bedtime tonight.  She certainly knows what I mean know when I tell her to lay down and go night-night - she's probably heard it 1,000 times the past few days.  Tomorrow is the 3rd day with my chair by her bed and then I'm supposed to move it further.  I'm not so sure how that is going to go, but she has shown SO much improvement in just the past 2 days, so I'm betting each day will keep getting easier for her and eventually we'll be back where we started with her soothing her self to sleep and sleeping through the night again.  Oh happy day! 

I really didn't mean to be so long winded about all of this sleep stuff.  The reason I began blogging about the sleep training in the first place was because the two new tricks that were in the video (peek-a-boo and pulling up) are ones she does when she is trying to not go to sleep. Today for one of her naps she kept doing peek-a-boo trying to get me to play.  I had to look away, because I didn't want her to think it was time to play, but I couldn't help but smile.  :-)