I...Need...Sleep.

I've got to admit it - I thought for sure that by six months old I'd have a baby who easily sleeps through the night. By this stage, I imagined myself resting my weary head on the pillow each night for at least 7-8 hours straight.

Boy, was I wrong.

Abigail started blissfully sleeping through the night by the time she was 3 months old. She'd sleep from approximately 9 pm each evening until 7 or 8 am, waking only once around 3 am for a bottle. I was thrilled! Little did I know that once she hit the 4 month wakeful period and started teething that things would take a turn for the worst. To compound our sleep issues further, she started rolling both back to front and front to back by the time she was 4.5 months old so she then needed to be weaned from her beloved swaddle at night as well.

When she started waking 4-5 times throughout the night, I originally thought, no big deal - I can handle this for a few weeks until everything goes back to normal. Then, after those next four weeks of sleepless nights, I thought, it's ok. This can't go on much longer. I'm sure she'll cut a tooth soon and we'll be back to sleeping through the night in a matter of days.

Guess what? I was wrong again.

It has now been over two months since Abbey has slept through the night. Heck, it's been almost 2 months since she's slept for 2 consecutive hours at a time during the night. She now wakes up anywhere from 7-15 times per night needing to be rocked back to sleep. Once I put her down, I'm lucky if she remains asleep for the next 45 minutes before waking again.

I'm utterly and hopelessly exhausted. I simply can't keep this up much longer. It would be great if Mike could help, but with him working 13 hour days 7 days a week right now, that's just not happening. I'm hopeful that once things slow down for him at work that I'll be able to catch a break. But really, I'd rather Abbey just start sleeping again. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

With no one to really turn to for help, I decided to purchase a few books from Half.com about helping babies and toddlers to sleep. I've already ruled out the possibility of "crying it out" and the Ferber Method as I simply don't condone any method that involves leaving Abbey to cry. As a result, I've decided on the following books:

The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley

The Baby Whisperer Solves All of Your Problems: Sleeping, Eating, and Behavior by Melinda Blau and Tracy Hogg

On Becoming Baby Wise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam

All of these books got good reviews from other mommies on The Bump boards, so I figured I'd give them a shot. What the heck - I'm desperate.

I just started reading Elizabeth Pantley's book so I've still got a lot more reading ahead of me. I hope someone out there somewhere is able to provide me with some answers before I completely lose it.