Sleep Training and a new toothbrush!

I bought a book entitled "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Marc Weissbluth. I encourage any of you with small babies to read it. Hannah has not slept through the night since she was 7 months old. We had a wind storm that knocked out power out for a week so we slept at Lou's aunt's house for the week. Hannah slept in bed with me all week. Since then she wakes up around 2am and will not settle unless I take her to bed with me. Lou usually falls asleep in his chair or wanders into the guest room because he knows bringing her to bed will let me rest some. It has been a long, long, long time since I've slept for 8 straight hours so I decided it was time for sleep training before things really got out of hand. I started with Hannah's morning nap. We rocked in her room with her bottle and her music on. She was so tired but really refused to go to sleep. So I told her it was nap time and put her in the crib. In the book it says to leave them alone and not to respond to the crying. Hannah cried for an hour and then fell asleep...on her own! This technique is very difficult to do because you instinctively want to go to them and feel extremely guilty for letting them cry. The books stated leaving them alone allows them to develop sleep skills which means they can soothe themselves back to sleep without assistance. In the long run it is healthier because sleep deprivation can lead to all types of bad things (health problems, learning problems, behavioral problems just to name a few). So we are doing this cold turkey. This afternoon I used the same practice with a bottle, music and rocking. I put Hannah down looking drowsy...she rolled over and went to sleep on her own. Tonight we had a bath, a bottle and rocked for a while. I made sure not to let her fall asleep drinking that bottle so she'd not only finish it but would go to sleep on her own. She cried for 10 minute on and off and that was it! I'm hoping we don't have any major meltdowns at 2am but I have promised myself I would not go to her until after 5:30am. I'm crossing my fingers that this works quickly. All of the testimonials in the book have been between 3-7 days for it to work with the majority being 5 days. Eventually Hannah should be able to be put in her crib for both naps and bedtime while she's awake and put herself to sleep on her own with no crying. Won't that be glorious?? Oh yes!

Now my problem is if her aunt who watches her in the mornings will follow through with this. If she doesn't, she could completely screw things up. She has a tendency to do what I ask for a day or two and then make excuses as to why she can't do it anymore (ex. can't put her in the crib for naps because she's too short to reach down there....the railing does not lower....).

In other baby news, Hannah is getting two new teeth. Both on the top, one is to the side and one is a middle front tooth. They have been bothering her so a friend's mom suggested an electric toothbrush. She said her kids went through them like crazy and they always helped them feel better. Just let them chew on them...hmmm....So I bought one of the el cheapo models for her. She LOVES to chew on it but is scared of it when you turn it on. Darn....could have saved $5 and got her a reach. ha!