Nap Time Success!

Lately I've been trying (without success) to get Abby to nap in her crib. The most I'd ever gotten was 20 minutes before she would wake up crying and refuse to fall back asleep. My pediatrician recommended that I start letting her fuss in her crib and not get her until she'd been fussing for five or so minutes and then increase the time to let her fuss as the days went by. I found that I just couldn't do this. So I'd end up picking her up and holding her until she fell back asleep and then either continue holding her or putting her in her swing (which she will sleep in). I even bought the book The No Cry Sleep Solution (not realizing there was one for naps) in the hopes that I could glean information from it.

In the end, Abby showed me that she'll do things on her own time frame thank you very much. Well, and with a little help from me. Yesterday I swaddled her, put her on her side with her back against the back side of the crib, tucked a blanket up against the side facing the center of the crib, put a stuffed bear touching the top of her head, and a blanket over her and she FINALLY took a real nap. She was down for two whole hours before I woke her up (yes, I know what they say about waking a sleeping baby) to feed her so Nate and I could run our errands. Two hours! I kept checking on her thinking it'd be just my luck if the one and only time I got her to sleep in her crib something happened.

So this crib napping should have been a fluke, right? Well, it seemed like it when I put her down for her morning nap in her crib this morning and she just wouldn't settle. So it was a morning nap spent in the swing. Well, her noontime nap came around and I thought I'd give it another go. She woke up and fussed a few times and needed a short nursing session but then she went down for two hours. TWO HOURS! I think this nap in the crib thing is working! Yeah! So my goal for the next two weeks is to really focus on staying home as much as possible to try and train her to sleep in her crib as much as possible. As I have a less active few weeks this should be possible. So excited!

Next step...sleeping in her bassinet/crib for nighttime sleeping. As I'm loving co-sleeping this may be a while. :-)

Abby sleeping in her crib!