****kiarox***

CollieJade

I'm sorry I didn't see your post last night....how did it go??

kiarox2002

Thanks for checking on me! 

It was pretty bad.  Lots of tears from both Kate and me.  She actually went to sleep the first time after crying for only 45 minutes which was better than our usual rocking her to sleep method, but then woke several times during the night and cried for between 30 minutes and an hour.  Even so, DH thinks she got more total sleep time.  I'm not sure about that one, but she did get a longer stretch of sleep for sure.  She actually slept 3 hours in a row.  It has been a long time since we've gotten that much sleep.

Today we have been working on the naps and it's been a disaster.  The book says to give up after 30 minutes which is what we've been doing.  She ended up sleeping in the car some, but we did not sit in the car and let her sleep.  As soon as we got to our destinations we woke her up.  I'm not sure what's going to end up happening with the naps.  I guess she will eventually fall asleep on her own for naps...  She might be headed to college by then, but it's bound to happen eventually.

Hopefully tonight goes better!  (Though isn't the second night usually the worst?)  We're ditching the wine tonight and making mojitos.  

CollieJade

UGH, I was really hoping it was going to be better than you expected.  I'm sorry.  BUT take heart in the fact that night #2 might not be as bad.  It wasn't for us at all.  Her crying got progressively better night by night and we never had a "worst" night.  It's just taken a really long time for her to get to a point where she cries very little.  Most nights she goes down without crying at all, but about once or twice a week she'll cry for 15 or 20.  You'll get there!

I'm glad you decided to give it a week, because I really think you'll see improvement.  A 3 hour stretch is HUGE when you've got kiddos like mine and yours.   I think you should prepare yourself that it may not go as a "textbook" case would go, where by night #4 she's going down without a fight and sleeping through the night without a peep (we're still not there yet either...) BUT I think a week is a good amount of time to see some definite improvements.  REMEMBER you can always pull the plug if it just doesn't feel right to you for any reason!!

How's your DH taking it?  Do you feel at all comfortable leaving the house while he handles it?

CollieJade

Oh, and when we started Ferber and I asked about it on here, most of the Ferber moms said they just started with bedtime and didn't Ferber for naps at all at first.  You can always do that too - try to get her to nap the usual way for a week or so and just Ferber for bedtime, until she gets used to it.  We did naps AND bedtime to start off with, and for us the first couple of days of Ferber at naptime was a disaster and she cried the whole 30 (sometimes I'd let her go to 45 ) min, and didn't sleep at all.  Naptimes improved faster than bedtime, however, and now she goes down for naps without crying about 98% of the time. 

Anyway, just putting that out there.   Good luck tonight!  We'll be thinking of you!