Sleep Training Camp a Success!

Yipee! We've all been sleeping better for the past week! That is no small accomplishment if you realize that Mya has not slept longer than 3 hour blocks since October. Lately it had become more like 1.5 - 2 hour stints.
Last Sunday night, all things came into alignment and I decided we would spend 7 days focusing on training Mya with a new way to sleep.
No one was sick (well, Craig was getting over some nasty food poisoning but I figured he was on the mend), we didn't have any unusual plans or appointments to mess things up and we were all extremely tired with our routine.
I decided to stop nursing Mya to sleep. Starting last Monday, I now nurse Mya about 1/2 hour before I anticipate she'll need to sleep. Now, she goes into her bed semi or fully awake. Amazingly, my plan has worked!
Monday night was great, Tuesday night was awful and then the rest of the week was fantastic. Instead of waking at 11, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7, for example, Mya is now going to bed around 7:30-8:30 and sleeping anywhere from 11 to 2 and then might wake again around 4 or 5. Essentially, only one middle of the night feeding. And boy does she feed! No fooling around now that she's sleeping over 3 hours.
Now, why, you might ask, didn't I try this approach earlier? Well, I did. My policy has always been to let Mya fuss for about 10 minutes on her own to see if she'll soothe herself back to sleep. Previously, after 10 minutes of fussing and crying, Mya would be so wound up and agitated it wasn't funny (boy, was it not funny). Now, for whatever reason, she fusses for less than 10 minutes each time I lay her down and then she's asleep.
Ironically, now that I've been getting longer bouts of sleep myself, I feel as though a truck hit me. Somehow, when I was continuing to go at my marathon pace, I was pumped and ready to go. Now that I've started to reverse my severe sleep deprivation, I'm intensely aware of how tired I am. Give me another few weeks of semi-decent sleep and I'll be good to go. Eventually, I'll plan another Sleep Camp to see if we can stretch her sleep even longer, but for now, this is a fantastic advancement. I am so proud of our little girl for learning so quickly! Bless her!