Desperate Situations Require Drastic Measures

Ahhh.... Sleep!

Corey and I love our two kids dearly, but they are both horrible sleepers at night. Since day one of Peyton's birth, which is two years ago, the Reed household has not slept. Peyton finally learned to sleep through the night for the most part, but then Annisten came into the picture. By the time she was 2 months she would sleep about 4 hours strait. Then she started teething and... well her sleep habits and our sleep all went out the window. The week the family went to AZ, her night wakings were every hour and half. No matter what I tried, nothing changed. She would scream and scream if she was not feed every hour and half. I spoke with her doctor, asked about everybody I could about the situation, and read a lot of books. Finally being so sleep deprived and so exhausted, I took extreme measures. It was time to just let her cry it out. Now this is something I said I would never do as a mother. Something had to change and nothing else was working. Desperate situations require drastic measures. Of coarse I checked on her at the 5, 10, and 20 minute intervals. This was really hard for the both of us to hear her cry. The first two nights were really hard for us. After a week she was getting better at sleeping. Annisten would wake up at random times for comfort.

Then the miracle happened. Last night we went to bed and we slept. I heard a small cry for the 6:00 a.m. feeding. Then she went right back down. So now it is 9:00 a.m. and she is still sleeping! Everyone slept so sound last night that Corey woke me up in a panic. He needed help getting out the door because he had over slept. He usually uses the kids as his morning alarm clock. I guess he needs a real alarm clock now. Hopefully this will be the day; marking many days to come of nights where we actually get sleep at the Reed house.