3 months old and crying it out...

My little girl turned 3 months old on July 28. She is still a peanut, but had not been sleeping well. She went from getting up once at night, to getting up 2-3 times and sometimes not falling back to sleep when we had company, to getting up 4-5 times when Ryan was out of town. The last one was the hardest on me, because I didn't have someone to get up with her instead. My mom came and stayed 2 nights, and would get up with Noah in the morning so that I could sleep. But even I have to say, I looked like a raccoon. The day Ryan came home, I was running on empty. I told him that that night we had to have her cry it out, because I couldn't function this way, especially with school starting up again. He said, okay. Now, we weren't letting her cry it out instead of feeding her- we still planned on getting up for that, but we planned on letting her cry it out to learn to soothe herself to sleep.

That night she didn't start to cry right away. She waited until 8:45, 15 minutes before we went to bed (she's a smart girl). Ryan and I decided to let her cry until 10 and then Ryan would feed her and put her back down if she was still crying. At 10 she was still crying. Ryan got up and fed her, and then she fell right to sleep. She only got up once in the night, and then slept until 9:45 the next morning. I felt pretty good the next morning. It was nice to get some sleep. The next night, she cried for 45 minutes, then 20 minutes. For two nights there was no crying, then we were back to 10 minutes. Now, she only gets up once at night, and when she gets up in the morning, she's up for maybe an hour and then back to sleep she goes. She is a much happier baby now- thank you Jesus!

It was difficult to let her cry it out, especially since she has heart issues. The cardiologist told us to treat her like a normal baby, but still she's so small- much smaller than Noah was at this age when we let him cry it out, so I felt guilty... until I saw a much happier baby the next morning. It's nice to know that we made a good choice when we made the crying it out decision.