Can I buy you a gift?

I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU for all of your thoughts and tips regarding the sleeping situation.

You (collectively) really are the best.

I wrote the last post a few days before it posted and, wouldn't you know it, I had already formulated some plans by the time the weekend rolled around. Your thoughts helped encourage me to move forward!

So, in no particular order, this is our current approach:

1. Kept the ghetto black out shades. They are not helping with naps, but have at least helped us avoid the issue of light outside at bedtime.

2. Moved back bedtime to 7:00pm. As a few people posted, there are some theories about moving bedtime UP to get a later wake-up time. I think a lot of this comes from Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, which I am a big fan of. Truth be told, though, Girly's bedtime just simply could not be moved earlier than 6:30pm. That would have been ridiculous. I made the decision to just bump it back by 30 minutes (instead of gradually) and to give it a whole week before I judged whether it was working. (Did I already mention that we had kind of toyed with this earlier and I didn't think it worked? I don't think I gave it a fair try.)

3. Added a little pillow to her crib. In true ridiculous fashion, I was rushing around on Friday evening cutting up an old pillowcase and hand sewing a new pillowcase because I was convinced it would help.

4. I downloaded an Ocean Waves for Baby CD from iTunes. I have a tiny iPod stereo that I put in her room and play the ocean sounds continuously all night. (The iTunes reviews said this is a great choice because there aren't any seagull or boat sounds, just waves. Never would have occurred to me to check.) It is good white noise.

The scientist in me would say that I should have tried each approach on it's own to see if it worked. But, in my desperation, I just decided to throw all the spaghetti at the wall and see what stuck.

So, what stuck?

Saturday and Sunday mornings were a slight improvement, but Monday and Tuesday mornings were almost blissful. She slept until 6:45 and 6:30am and I practically had to physically restrain myself from going in and checking on her to make sure she wasn't dead.

Granted, we had a really busy weekend and her naps were sub-par, but I am hoping for a positive trend.

The best outcome of all is that, this morning, she clapped and laughed when I came to get her out of her crib, instead of screaming bloody murder.

I had missed those morning babbles and they are oh. so. sweet.