You may remember that back in March, after much thought and research and craziness, we decided to sleep train Rory using the Ferber method. It took me hours to get her down for the night and I was losing it. I am happy to report that the improvements have been amazingly fabulous!

An hour before bedtime, we read books. Then we play on her floor while listening to lullabies. Then she takes a bath, gets her pajamas on, and goes right to bed. At nap time, we read books and then she goes right to bed. If you would have told me it could ever be like this when I was in the thick of sleep madness at the beginning of the year, I would never have believed or dreamed it. I am SO happy we decided to sleep train! I didn't want to do it for fear of screwing her up emotionally, but really, she's fine. She sleeps better. I feel better. I no longer want to jump out the window and run, arms flailing, into the sunset. It's good.

I'm ever surprised how well she adapts to when we're traveling. We've been on a few trips since sleep training, and as long as we do our best to replicate the parts of the bedtime routine that we can, she still goes to sleep easily. I was worried that being in a strange bed in a strange place would make it hard, but it really hasn't. And when she gets off her schedule after being away, she adjusts back within a day or so.

The last thing I feel the need to brag about is that I wanted to stop her nursing to sleep this past month, so that once she weans she won't need to nurse to get sleepy. So one day, I just stopped doing it. And she was fine. Which means that Ralf and I can now trade off bedtime duty and I get a glorious break some evenings. I almost weep with delight just thinking about it!

I always get this little voice inside when something good happens, telling me not to talk about or think about it too long or it will go back to being crappy, but I had to risk jinxing myself to let everyone know how great sleep training has been for us. Maybe our story will help other moms to maybe not wait as long or go as crazy as I did before DOING something! Because life has been so, so much better now that I don't have to fret about bedtime. Oh yes.