Battle for Sleep!!

So my sweet little girl who I LOVE to rock to sleep is too big for her britches. Well, maybe not, but we are battling it out with the sleep issues. The first issue is regressing back to newborn stage and waking up every three hours to eat. She has had her bad nights but for the most part is a good sleeper, and now all of a sudden she is hungry. Dad has been unsuccessful in getting her back to sleep without my having to get up as well. This makes for one tired momma and some nights a tired daddy too. I am hoping that this whole waking up to eat thing is because she is going though a growth spurt, but we will see. The last 2 nights she has slept for 6 hours so maybe I am right and we can get back to full nights of sleep quickly haha.

The second issue is how to get her to go to sleep in the first place! Now, it has been our habit to rock Elaina to sleep since she has been born. I know this is controversial as to whether you should rock a baby to sleep or not but, we have loved it. My theory was and is so far that she is only a little baby for so long and I wanted to eat up every second with her. I may live to regret that theory but so far I have not. She had never taken long to rock to sleep, before 2 weeks ago I could sit for 5 min or less and she was out. I loved it, perfect little snuggle time for us, but all of a sudden she is not wanting to go to sleep at all. When we sit down to rock her she fights it. She cries and arches back and one of us ends up holding her tightly and she eventually gives up and goes to sleep. So, rocking has ended up being an unpleasant experience for all of us and we were in search of a change. While I was at work Silas decided he had enough and if she was going to cry it out in his arms, she could just as easily cry it out in her bed. I agree with this fact, but we are both a bit wimpy when it comes to her crying alone in her room. We decided one other time to try this and we only made it 10 minutes before we scooped her up and continued with our rocking routine. At that time neither one of us knows why we even tried it because we both still loved to rock her, but fast forward to now and we are trying to be strong. As I am blogging this it is day 3 and we have remained strong. She still takes 10 to 20 minutes of fussing but at least today she hasn't even really cried. Hoping and praying that this works and she happily goes to bed for us. Otherwise, I don't know what we will do. She doesn't know this but I am sure this hurts her dad and I as much or more than it hurts her. I secretly am amused that it hurts her dad because he is full of tough guy talk, but that little girl lets out one whimper and he folds, almost every time :) For example only night # 2 of trying this and since she had done so good he thought maybe we should just rock her....um...no! then we have to start all over, right??? Oh well, it is getting better and I hope we are doing the right thing. Her 6 month well check up is coming up in July and I hope to have a great update on her sleeping status...until then we will continue to battle and see who has the stronger will :) Love my baby girl, even when she doesn't sleep!!