Ella Sleeping Lately

Ella was sleeping so well for awhile.  About 2 months ago she started waking up in the night crying around 3 AM (some nights).  Sometimes I could run in and rock her and she'd be back to sleep in less than 5 minutes. Other times she requested the big bed and I brought her to our bed and she cuddled with me and fell asleep almost immediately.   She'd have a few good days of sleeping the entire night. Also sometimes she didn't wake up until 6 AM doing this. If it was 6, I just brought her right to our bed so she'd fall asleep immediately. This didn't do so well for my sleep though.

mattress on floor

Then we traveled to Philly and she was scared to sleep alone. She had a twin mattress on the floor to sleep on or a twin mattress on a bed frame to sleep on.  The first night she was just too scared and we slept on the mattress on the floor. I did not sleep well at all. Also we didn't even start going to bed until after 1 because our flight got in so late. We thought it was understandable that she was scared since she was only in that house less than 2 hours before we tried to get her to go to sleep.  Throughout the night, she would roll off the mattress and it would make a noise on the wood floor and then it would wake me up.

mattress on floor

The second night, I got a blanket and rolled it up and made a barrier on the and put it under the fitted sheet. Then she couldn't roll out.   She was still scared and wouldn't handle going to sleep. It was a rough time so I just decided to sleep with her again. It was still pretty rough to get her to sleep but finally she did.

3/9

3/10

3/11

The next 5 or so nights I didn't even try to have her sleep alone there and went to sleep with her. It was still a little difficult to get her down. When I woke up to go pee or something then she would cry out and yell for me. I'd wake up and lie there in the morning to make it easier for her to sleep longer.

3/16

Then we got home and she slept fairly well for the 5 days until we moved. She did end up in our bed sometimes.

Then it was awful again and she was scared. She would not sleep in her room. She wanted to sleep in the big bed. It's not like she went right to sleep either. She was jumping and bouncing all around and would be up until 11 PM daily.   She'd wake up multiple times in the night and need to cuddle with me or mainly lie right on me.  One night she even woke up many times with nightmares crying and screaming no.

3/22 morning

3/22 playing with her kitchen before bed

Finally on the night of March 22, she slept in her own room!  We put on a lamp and left it on all night. Also she was playing with her toy kitchen and we said she could play and tuck herself in.  I'm not even sure when she tucked herself in or went to sleep because we don't have a baby camera now.  She slept all the way until 7 AM. It was great!  I slept so well!  She was so happy when she woke up.

3/22 nap

She hasn't fully napped in her new room yet but on the day of March 22, she fell asleep in the car and then survived a transfer and stayed asleep and slept awhile in her bed. She failed every other crib transfer. She's been good at falling asleep in the car so on Tuesday, I just stayed in the car with her and took a little nap myself so that she'd be able to sleep longer.

This has been exhausting for me. Also with the stress of traveling and stress of moving sometimes I'd wake up at 3 from her and then not fall back to sleep until 6. I really hope we bounce back and last night was a trend for future good nights.