The battle has begun!

Tonight, for the first time, I'm making Kaitlyn sleep in her crib. Until tonight she's been sleeping in the cradle in our room...or if she doesn't sleep well I've grabbed her and put her to bed with me. Tsk, tsk, I know...

Natalie has pretty much been sleeping in her crib for a few months now. She is such a good little sleeper. Most nights she sleeps for about 12 hours straight. Sometimes Hubby gets up with her and gives her a bottle, but usually the pacifier and re-wrapping does the trick. He earned it though. When she was just a wee lil' thing, he got up with her countless times a night and soothed her back to sleep. I, on the other hand, slept with Katie...call me lazy, but I was just exhausted.

I have, however, gotten to the point with Katie that I can lay her down awake but drowsy. She'll usually fall asleep withing a minute or two on her own. Well tonight, she was almost asleep, I laid her in her crib and - bing! - her eyes shot wide open. She's a smart cookie for recognizing that wasn't her normal sleeping place. Our room is really dark. We have an a/c unit running on fan for the noise. The nursery isn't completely dark until the sun goes down and it's quiet. I did turn on the heartbeat music after a while for her so she'd have some noise. It took about 50 minutes of whining, some crying and me putting the pacifier in her mouth. I did pick her up twice. I held her until she stopped crying, then laid her back down. She's been quiet back there for about 15 minutes now. Oh, I did also put a "lovey" next her her head that I've been sleeping with for a few days in anticipation of her sleeping alone. I think it helped. She's asleep with her head turned toward it.

I wonder how the rest of the night will go. Will she wake up sporadically crying? Will she sleep for hours? Will she go right back to sleep after her night feeding like she normally does? I purposefully chose a Friday night to start this, because I'm anticipating getting less sleep than I normally do, but I'm hoping it won't take too long to pay off. It'll be nice to have our room back. To be able to talk above a whisper in there after 7pm and to read in bed again with my lamp on. Ahh...

Wish us luck, as I'm sure we will all suffer this next few days...hopefully not weeks. Poor Natalie will need to get used to her noisy sister sleeping in the same room as her. I feel for the kid...

Let me know if you have any tips or tricks to transitioning your baby from cradle to crib. I'm flying by the seat of my pants here! :0)