ellery & her big girl bed

oh sleeping. i feel like sleep, eating and dirty diapers are some of the most talked about topics among new moms. and i have lost a lot of sleep just thinking of ellery & how she sleeps...really.

for ellery's first month, she either slept in her newborn sleeper right next to us, or she slept with us in bed. co-sleeping seemed to be the only way any of us were ever going to get any sleep. plus, kyle and i love to cuddle, so it's only natural that ellery's a snuggler, too :) so, i read up on co-sleeping (such a hot topic right now), deciding if that's what we were going to do, we were going to be as safe as possible.

soon, someone started to get a bit squirmy and wasn't really sleeping as well with us as she was before. so, kyle proposed having e try out her crib. well in my mind, that's her big girl bed. i mean, it's so big! and she's so stinkin' cute & tiny! i felt like she was moving off to college, when really, she was just moving about 15 feet away to her nursery across the hall from our room. i was a little dramatic. but we gave it a try.

the first few nights (1/8 & 1/9) she slept for 4 to 5-hour stretches at night, longer than she had ever slept before. we continued to lay her down to sleep in her crib, and though some nights she ended up back in our room, for the most part she did great! though i was hesitant at first, thinking she was growing up too fast, seeing how well all of us were sleeping those nights, i knew were doing the right thing for our family & ellery.

then the next week, she decided to be a bit sassy. she no longer loved her crib. she went back to sleeping in smaller chunks. and some days, the girl barely slept 5 minutes during the day. as soon as i would lay her down, she'd pop up thinking she just slept for hours. needless to say, all three of us were exhausted.

on 1/17, we had a breakthrough. since ellery wasn't sleeping well that day & wouldn't go down for the night, we decided to skype with my grandparents in florida. my mom was visiting them that week, so we got to talk to all three of them, which was so fun. mammaw & pampaw instantly fell in love with her chubby cheeks :) i told them our sleeping predicament, and pampaw decided to try & help out. he started singing to her, and within the first few lines of the song, she was out!! it was absolutely amazing - and adorable!

the most amazing part is she slept from 9:30pm-9am that night, waking up once for a half hour to feed!! her first time sleeping through the night!!! it has been her best night of sleep to date! we told pampaw to be on stand-by every night in case we need him again!

so, ellery has mostly been in her crib, though it changes from night to night whether she sleeps for 5 hours or wakes up every single hour. i've looked into a lot of different sleep theories - cry it out, parenting your child to sleep, no-cry sleep solution etc. a lot of times i just get overwhelmed by them, feeling like i'm doing something wrong or there is so much more i could be doing. but then all i do is look at ellery and remind myself we just need to figure out what works for her, not what everyone else thinks works. i think she likes that idea :) hoping for a good night of sleep tonight!