Sleep training round two

Warning: this is a lengthy, boring journal entry.
Ayla is now 11 months old. She still doesn't sleep through the night. When I weaned her from nursing at nine months, she slept for 8 hours straight every night for a week......and that was it. She wakes up one or two times a night because only heaven knows why. Back in December I tried sleep training her....it lasted for two stinking months of no progress and a grouchy mom because I seriously got 5 hours or less sleep each night until I finally gave up. She'd cry for two hours straight every night, or wake up every hour and cry for 20 minutes. Seriously, it was bad.

Last night was the first night of our second time trying the cry-it-out method...because I have no idea how else to get her to sleep on her own. At 1:40am she started crying, to which I rolled over so I wasn't facing her and tried to go back to sleep. At 2 am she was wailing. By the sound of it she thought she hadn't eaten for a week. I had a serious conversation in my head with myself about what to do. Brady was at work like normal, so he wasn't any help. My only solution was go sleep on the couch with earplugs and shut and latch my door so Gideon wouldn't come in and bother her, since he often is woken up in the night by her screaming from clear across the house. I remember looking at the clock and seeing 2:44 am and she was still crying for a minute then would stop for a minute, then start again. I have no idea when she finally stopped because I finally fell asleep. She's so loud I can hear her through the closed door and my earplugs, so it's no wonder Gideon wakes up even though he has a fan on to help block out the noise. I heard her start screaming again at 5:44am, and again ignored her. I decided then that I wouldn't get her up for the day until 7am. Sure enough, Gideon woke up at 6am and came to find me on the couch. Our house was so light already by then that he didn't go back to sleep in his room. I put him back in bed, but at 6:30 I heard him screaming for delight in the boys room...he was on the top bunk having a blast. I put him back in bed again, and at 6:45 he was in the boys room waking them up again. Then at 7am Ayla was awake for the day. She was fine and totally happy to see me.

She survived the night just fine, and I did too...barely. My hips hurt so bad today from sleeping on the couch. But that's the only way I can think of to get her to sleep through the night by herself. I can't move her into Gideon's room until she does because he is such a light sleeper. I can't move Gideon into the boys room and her into a room by herself until she sleeps all night because their rooms are right across the hall from each other and she'll still wake up Gideon with her crying. And I can't have Brady and I sleeping on the couch so she can cry, so she has to figure this out by Monday night so Brady and I can sleep in peace when he's home for his weekend. Otherwise I'll be starting this all over again every single Thursday night. You all envy me, I know you do.

Any way I try to do this it sucks. In my dream house I'll have sound proof bedrooms, and an upstairs to contain the noise. Of course I'll have lots of other things like carpet in my living room, a huge laundry room with a utility sink, a walk-in pantry, wood floors so I don't have to deal with dirty/stained grout, a storage room just for all the clothes I have to store for the boys to save money, and maybe even a three car garage so one can be just for the bikes and outside toys we have.