Bed Time

I never had the heart to let Hattie cry it out.  But recently we've been working on having her fall asleep by herself.  Previously, we had been rocking her to sleep every night, but it started getting ridiculous.  It would take 1.5+ hours of rocking before she fell asleep.  Even when she was exhausted. I came to dread bed time.  It was always a battle and took forever!  I was so fed up one night I just put Hattie in her crib and left, figuring I'd wait 10 minutes and then go back in.  She was so upset she threw up about 5 minutes in.  I felt terrible.  TERRIBLE!  But she fell asleep quickly afterwards.  Despite this rough start, we stuck with it.  Giving her 3 minutes in the crib and then going in to rescue her.  She's slowly gotten better and better.  Last night, we rocked for a bit then I put her in her crib (still awake).  She rolled over and looked at me with eyes wide open, but instead of crying she waved her little hand and said "bye bye Mama".  I laughed in surprise then told her goodnight!  She fell asleep all on her own!  I feel like it's a miracle.  I know it's not, kids do learn to fall asleep by themselves at some point, but it feels like a huge win and it's a wonderful milestone to have passed.  I no longer dread bed time.