So our seventh month old is officially sleeping through the night!! YESSSSSS!!!! Trust me it is even more glorious than you can possibly imagine, though I must note that for some reason getting more sleep is somehow making us MORE tired... Perhaps the more you get the more you want??? I don't even know. But I'm just happy to be able to sleep for six (or on a good night eight) hours straight again. Makes that farfetched dream of my beloved nine hours of beauty sleep seem a little more realistic. Like maybe in 2025?? That's not so far away right??? Right????

As you can gather from the photos this is not a sleep training post. Why? Because we didn't do it. We tried several times using a few different methods and all it did was frustrate all three of us. So we decided to suck it up. We doubled up on the coffee, waved goodbye to sleep and said hello to our new reality. V's regression started around four months and lasted until about six and half. So we're really talking about slightly longer than two months here. I believe you can do anything for two months. And we survived! 

So how did we survive exactly?? Well we made a decision that since we can't go out for dinner anymore (her "put down process" starts around 6:30 so going anywhere is a no go) and we're not getting any sleep we had to think of a way to make our days enjoyable still. So that's how we came up with date nights at home! We made it a tradition that almost every night we would create an easy, delicious dinner that we could eat on the couch while watching trashy tv. So for two months straight we would throw together anitpasti platters (stupid level easy), guac and chips, made grilled cheese sandwiches, or just picked at leftovers while the Real Housewives banged on tables and called each other strippers. It was perfect. We ended up looking forward to the evening every day when we could unwind and spend time together. This way I also didn't have the added stress of having to "cook" a meal and we would just load up on the olives, sausage, cheese, chips, etc every few weeks so we always had what we needed on hand. 

My mum told us when V started sleeping poorly around four months that she knows her personality and when she'll be ready to sleep through the night again she will. And she ended up being right, we just had to be a little patient and allow her to figure it out on her own. Around six months we started to see a slow improvement until two weeks ago when she was totally sleeping all through the night. It's not for everyone and perhaps some babies truly need sleep training and react well to it. For us, it just didn't work. So I wanted to share how we survived in case any of you are finding yourselves in a similar situation and looking to make things bearable as your baby works out his or her sleep patterns.

Here's to date nights at home!!