We all know sequels are never as good as the original… boy was the second round of sleep training a complete failure! But why did we need another round at all? Two words…Developmental milestones.

I was overwhelmingly happy when Chiara could finally sit unassisted and so was she. It changed our days completely. She would spend “tons” of time sitting and playing with toys in front of her, giving me time to at least prepare my breakfast and eat some of it too! At first, she needed help sitting up, but being the crazy baby she is it was only a matter of days before she realized that if she rolled unto her belly she could push back and sit up. No seriously, she had it mastered in less tan two weeks. So of course, she started doing this at bedtime and through the night. At first I understood the fact that she was excited to practice her new skill but after a couple weeks it got old. I showed her over and over how to lay back down, but to be honest she wasn’t interested and before she even got to figure that out she was pulling up to standing and learning to crawl, so yea sleep was once again out the window. 

For a few minutes I need you to step into our shoes. I live with a person whose professional career (read paycheck, performance, success) depends on his physical well-being. Meaning eating decently, training hard, and above all taking care of his body – aka resting and recovering are fundamental parts of our lives. As you can imagine having a wailing baby cry for nights and nights at a time isn’t always an option. You know what though? Mommy’s well being is also important. So when the whole sitting, crawling, standing debacle began it only took a couple weeks of restless nights before she ended up in our bed, in hopes that then we’d all get more rest.

Riiiiiiggghhhhhtttt… kicking, tossing, turning, this girl was even sitting up while sleeping next to me, and there I was to pin her down. Finally, I decided that I needed to put an end to this and the best time would be to do it while Justin was still gone every weekend. Once again, I picked one of Justin’s “longer trips” and started the whole thing; I even tried to sleep train over Easter when the in laws were here.

It didn’t work, Chiara was going through lots of developmental milestones both physical and mental and during this time she also got her very first cold..oh and did I mentioned two teeth? Honestly, we didn’t try too hard, in fact even though I kept trying to train nights, I was too exhausted during the day, so naps were still happening with me or even dad… and that made nights harder. Soon enough, I completely gave up. I needed to stop worrying and needed to take a break. We all needed sleep and so I decided that whatever sleep I lost at night because of the kicking and turning I’d recover through the day napping with her. She would start out in her crib and the first couple of wake ups a paci would fix things. When she started resisting or if the fussing woke her up too much, she’d come to our bed.

And that brings us to the present and round 3 of sleep training people! Bare with me, last cliffhanger… next time: how and why I decided to give it another shot! 

Naps with mommy continued.. Sometimes I slept, sometimes I caught up with friends on my phone, sometimes I got into creative positions to do some reading

Sometimes Daddy took the job... he's a great napper, so we thought maybe she'd use him as a role model? or maybe learn through osmosis?

Other times, I'd lay there til she was fast asleep and then get up to do stuff, those were some of the times she got to sleep on the big bed alone

 But things had to change...This pohotgraphic story will be CONTINUED..

(missed part one? Click Here to go to Sleep Training Round 1)