A Game Changer

Last night's performance by Eloise was ridiculous. It took Chris more than an hour to get her to sleep in the first place, and once she was, the transfer into her crib resulted in projectile vomit. All over the carpets we had cleaned on Friday. Obviously.

That's a pretty smug look, missy.

If you've been reading this blog for a while you already know that Eloise's sleep has been a struggle since the beginning. In part I blame myself for going to her too quickly in the early days, but in some ways I can't blame anyone because Eloise was simply a very small (four and a half pounds), early (I delivered at 36 weeks) baby and she had a lot of catching up to do. For many months she needed to eat every two or three hours and though it was never a problem for us to get her to sleep, it was a problem to get her to stay that way.

As soon as Eloise was eating enough during the day she went from waking up often to eat to sleeping for eight hours straight. The solution then was food. The solution now, I'm not too sure. In the last year we've tried everything. Rocking her in the glider, rocking her in the rocking chair, lying down with her in our bed and crying it out, too. Unfortunately, the least successful of these has been crying it out because it almost always results in Eloise throwing up, completely negating the point of helping her self soothe.

Of course she's interested in spending time in her crib now. It's only been 22 months.

So what we have now is a 22 month old who needs to be held until she is dead asleep and can only be placed in her crib when she's ready. And even then only sometimes successfully. My parents have their own magical methods that Chris and I can't figure quite out. My Dad is known as the Sandman and Eloise will ask for my Mom when I'm trying to get her down and she's really sleepy; it's like she knows I'll never be able to seal the deal like Gaga or Papa can.

Anyway, the point of all this is that last night was a game changer. It showed Chris and I that we need to try something new so today we went out and bought a twin sized mattress. Chris and my dad assembled Eloise's big girl bed this evening and the mattress arrives on Tuesday. Let's just hope this is the change we need.