Phase 2: No More Pacifier or Swaddle - Day 2 & 3

Now that I have enough data points... Here is how the Crying It Out looks for Phase 2: No More Pacifier or Swaddle:



You can see the overall crying has gone down and the amount of heavy crying has gone down. Note also that the very first nap was the hardest crying session by far. Thank goodness I didn't give up! Harper is definitely learning how to soothe herself and put herself to sleep. Even at the end of the nap she is waking up and kind of playing rather than crying.

It's funny how I had all kinds of expectations about going through this and there have been a lot of surprises. For one thing, I was expecting the sleep to be hardest at the start of a nap and, instead, it has been harder at the 45-minute intruder point. Also, I didn't think Harper's cries would be that bad and she proved me wrong. When she has cried the "heavy crying," it was enough to make me doubt everything. I'm thankful she has had enough meltdowns previously that I recognized the crying and knew that it wasn't a matter of physical pain or something like that. Her meltdowns in the past have been when she was tired and there was a "stranger" (you know, anyone except Mom) situation to throw her over the edge. Anyway, if she had been 100% angel baby (the kind that doesn't exist, i.e., never cries), this crying would have been very alarming.

So it has gotten better and I think we're almost through it. I can already see improvements in her sleeping since she has not woken up early two days in a row. That's a HUGE victory! (By the way, Z has also slept straight through two nights in a row and I'm starting to feel like a normal person.) I am so encouraged to see progress and growth.