Remember when...

Remember when I wrote this post and was contemplating sleep training.  Remember when I said in that post, that I couldn't let Lauren cry herself to sleep.  Remember when she was so easy to put to sleep and she slept all night? Remember when....ahhhh those were the days!  Well the last few days, I can't remember a time that she hasn't gone to sleep without a fight.  Last week was brutal for us.  I know there are no consistencies with children but, wow, Lauren threw us for a big loop when she decided to stay up past midnight for 3 nights in a row!  We had to do something.  Laying in bed with us was not working anymore.  All she wanted to do was play.  This was not fun for me or Kevin.  Kevin, because he has to be up at 4:45am and me, because it's not particularly fun to have my 20-something pound, 11 month old daughter, playfully jump, kick and hit my very pregnant belly.  We were exhausted, so was she, and something had to be done now!  We decided that Friday night we would begin putting her to bed and letting her cry it out.  This time, we were NOT going to give up.  This time we were going to be strong. 
Well, this time, we didn't give up.  Were we strong? No...I cried like a baby.  Kevin was feeling terrible as well.  We did it though. We let her cry for about 15 min and then I went in and rubbed her back and tried to lay her back down.  That made things worse.  She was now throwing a full blown fit since I had come in.  I had to just leave, tears rolling down my face just as much as hers.   After about 30 minutes of crying, she fell asleep.  We decided to wait a few minutes before going in and checking on her.  After ten minutes had passed, we went in to cover her up.  The stinker was laying on her blanket with it tucked between her legs.  If we were smart, we would have just left her.  Like I said, if we were smart.... but we weren't.  We tried, so very cautiously to move her blanket.  FAIL.  She woke up.  We both bolted out of there like kids getting caught doing something very wrong.  We didn't want her to see us because that would only make it worse again.  She cried for about 10-15 more minutes she finally passed out around 10:30.  We checked on her and covered her up around 10:45pm and then headed to bed ourself.  She woke up once around 2am.  I just went in and laid her down and covered her up and she was right back to sleep with absolutely no fight at all.  She then slept in til 9:45am!
Night 2:  I will spare you the long story like above:   We started a little earlier than the night before.  She cried for about 30 min.  We never went in this time to rub her back or anything.  She fell asleep by 9:30pm and didn't wake up til 8:15am.  Not even once in the middle of the night.
Night 3:   We put Lauren in bed around 9:15pm.  She was asleep in less than 5 minutes, and she didn't wake up at all during the night.  She did wake up for the day at 4am.  That was no big deal though.  I cuddled with her for a bit and then realized that she was really up for the day.  We got up and played while Kevin got ready.  It was actually kind of nice for us both to be up with Kevin and see him off to work.  Lauren drank a bottle and played while I got a load of laundry done, and the dishes put away from the dishwasher.  We both laid back down around 6:45am and woke up around 8:30am.  It is now 2:20pm.  She has been playing hard and messing up the house very well for several hours now.  She finally just went down for a nap.   I think we are going to keep it to one nap a day from now on.

All in all, we are very happy with our decision to let Lauren cry it out.  We never imagined it would be so hard.  We have had an overwhelming amount of support and encouragement from our family and friends.  It has made us feel a lot better about our decision to do this.  I know it will be worth it in the end.