9 month update

It has been a while since we have written so there is much to tell. Despite the one time Gia slept through the night, night-time continued to be very challenging. She would wake up several times during the night and often not go back to sleep for over an hour. This was exhausting. Then I hurt my back, which meant that Amy had to take care of Gia every night for a week. Since, I typically was the one who took Gia in and out of her crib at night that meant that Amy would just take her into bed with us after her first waking. This meant we were getting even worse sleep. Around Sept. 12, Amy had had enough and declared we were going to start sleep training Gia. It was not an easy decision for us because we really wanted to avoid letting Gia “cry-it-out”, but at 8 months and things getting worse no matter what we did, we didn’t see any other options. So, the next day we bought a DVD created by some “baby sleep experts” who Amy had heard very good things about (“The Sleep Easy Solution”).

While watching the DVD, one thing that became clear to us was that Gia needed her own room (up until this point, she was still sleeping in the hallway, when not in our bed). So Amy did something very heroic, and gave up her office in a single day. We immediately moved a bunch of Amy’s stuff out into the living room and moved Gia’s crib into Amy’s office. That first night was very difficult for all of us. It took Gia about 40 minutes to fall asleep on her own (crying most of the time). The whole time Amy and I were just heart broken and sending her love. She woke up 6 times that night :(. Fortunately, only one of them lasted a long time. The next night was much better. She fell asleep after about 15 minutes and only woke up once outside of when we woke her for night feedings (the sleep easy solution recommended we night-wean her over 4 nights). Things got better and better. Within a week Gia was consistently sleeping through the night! And I mean actually sleeping through the night. I’m not talking about some crazy researcher’s idea that 5 hours is sleeping through the night! I’m talking about 11-12 hours straight with her putting herself back to sleep if she wakes up. Naps have taken a lot longer but are now going pretty well. I can’t describe for you the sense of freedom we have now. It is amazing to be able to put Gia to sleep in 5 minutes and not have to tend to her until the next morning or her nap is over. It used to be a 45 minute affair! We are all also getting way more sleep. I think Amy and I had forgotten what it felt like to sleep through the night ourselves!

In addition to getting more sleep, the new setup seems to have helped Gia in other ways also. Most notably she has learned to play by herself in new ways. One day we went to get her after a 1 hour nap (that never happened because she sat up and played the whole time). To our surprise, she had gathered up all 8 pacifiers that we had strategically placed all around her crib (so she would always have one in reach) and placed them neatly around her. 2 to her right, 2 in her lap, 3 in front of her lined up and 1 in her mouth! Her next nap, she threw every one of them out of the crib. And her 3rd nap of the day she tucked every one of them between the wall and her crib! What crazy shenanigans will she be up to next?

Some other big milestones that have occurred recently are that Gia is crawling (see the movie) and her first tooth is coming in. We can’t believe she is growing up so fast!