Oh, what I would give if...

Oh, what I would give if Ellie would learn to self-soothe already! I know she is just 7 weeks old but putting her to sleep at night has been such a challenge this week. During the day for some reason she doesn't have much of a problem and goes down with little to no fussing. There have been a few times lately that she will just fall asleep on her own in my lap or in the bouncy seat which shows us that she can fall asleep on her own. That's what makes the evenings so frustrating!

It's so hard to know what to do here...cry it out (which we're nowhere close to) or continue to soothe her to sleep (which can take anywhere from 5 to 60 minutes!) I agree with Brad that she is so nosy sometimes she gets angry when we swaddle her and begin rocking in the glider because she knows what we're trying to do and she doesn't want to sleep! Last night she was practically asleep in the swing so I took her out, got her to sleep, put her in her crib and within a minute she was awake crying. We have decided to start waiting 5 minutes before going in to soothe her to start giving her a chance to learn to fall asleep on her own. So, we gave her 5 minutes and Brad went in calmed her down after 5 minutes or so and laid her back down. The next time I went in and picked her up but all she wanted to do was eat so Brad took her back and he repeated the process for about an hour! All that and she only slept for maybe 30 minutes. I felt bad because I couldn't help. The problem with this method is that she gets herself so worked up that she wakes up and doesn't want to go back to sleep. We want to give Ellie the gift of health sleep habits, but we are struggling.

We just don't know what to do here. I keep praying for wisdom to know what will be best for Ellie and us. It's exhausting and leaves Brad and I with little to no time alone together, which we desperately need at this point! I know one day I will look back and long for the days where I rocked her to sleep but at this point it will be a long time.