Day 60: Taking stock

Wow, it has been 60 days since I started the No-Cry Sleep Solution. While I don't consider Mari's sleep issues 100% "solved," her sleep habits have improved out of sight. Two months ago:

• She was waking up about a dozen times a night
• Her longest sleep stretch was typically about two hours
• She had to be rocked (or occasionally nursed) to sleep each and every time
• She rarely napped outside her sling; if she did, she had to co-nap snuggled up to me or Jon. At night she slept in our bed. (Please note I don't consider co-sleeping necessarily a problem for everyone at all times -- we loved it when Mari was younger. But it was becoming a problem for both us and her.)

Now:

• She typically wakes up just once a night to feed. Sometimes we hear her "talking" or fussing a bit other than for that one feeding, but she usually manages to put herself back to sleep within a few minutes.
• Her longest sleep stretch typically ranges from about five to nine hours; occasionally we have had up to 11.
• She sleeps and naps alone in her crib and doesn't seem to have a problem with it
• She no longer has to be rocked to sleep; after a relaxing bedtime/naptime routine (including brief rocking but not all the way to sleep) she goes into her crib awake and usually falls asleep fairly quickly (though that still varies, especially for naptime).

We have accomplished most of the goals I set out when we started this journey. However, there are still areas for improvement:

• I still think Mari generally needs to nap more. She's often tired and cranky in the late afternoon, but it seems like she's really and truly giving up the late-afternoon nap because she just will not take that nap anymore (though for now I will continue to try to get her down if she does seem tired, on the off chance she actually manages to fall asleep). On days when she has good morning and early-afternoon naps, she isn't cranky, or not until it's pretty much bedtime anyway. But if one of those naps is short, or worse, both are, watch out!
• Lately the morning nap has been the biggest problem. She really does best when she naps at least an hour, preferably an hour and a half, in both the morning and early afternoon. But she often wakes up from her morning nap after not much more than 30 minutes, and she won't go back down.
• Sometimes, particularly in the afternoon, I still rock her back to sleep after a premature nap waking. I am somewhat torn on this. I don't want to continue this practice, but I do it if I go in and she still seems obviously sleepy. If she doesn't fall back asleep quickly or seems to be waking up good and proper I abandon the attempt. Maybe I need to have more faith in her ability to put herself back to sleep, even from naps. But my fear is that if she wakes herself up completely she won't be able to go back to sleep even though she needs the sleep, and she'll be a mess.
• She's still highly unpredictable in terms of when she will nap and for how long. However, her morning wake-up time and night going-to-bed time have become more consistent.
• Occasionally, though, she wakes up really early and won't go back to sleep. I don't really know what to do about that.
• Our doctor says Mari doesn't really need night feedings anymore. She wants Mari completely weaned from them by the time she's nine months, which is also the age Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child author Marc Weissbluth says is the limit for needing night feedings. I am now trying to restrict her to one night feeding, usually successfully, and will continue to do so. But I'm not going to start trying to night wean her completely until she's eight months. 

Despite the above issues, in the past two months I feel I've learned a fair bit about baby sleep in general and quite a lot about Mari's sleep in particular. So I will spend the next week or so writing down various aspects of what I've learned and creating a new hybrid plan with elements that work for us taken from various books. I hope other parents will find my experience useful.