DIY Etsy-Inspired Party Invitations

As you may know, our sweet & tiny little Reaganbaby recently turned one, and we threw a little celebration in honor of the occasion. I DIYed just about the entire thing because it's a lot cheaper that way, and because I like doing that kind of stuff. I also decided to document how I made everything so I could share it with you!

One of the first things needed when planning a party is invitations. Starting with our theme - You Are My Sunshine, and a color scheme - yellow, pink, and a splash of orange, I began searching for the perfect invitations. I first looked at Shutterfly, Tiny Prints, and Snapfish since they tend to be my go-to for photo cards. Sadly they had nothing relating to the theme or colors I wanted. Moving on from there I went more specialty and looked at Etsy. There are tons of great options on there and the sellers are usually very willing to work with you. I found several designs that I liked but that weren't in my color scheme. I could change that for a $5 fee. The other thing I needed customized was two separate dates and addresses because we had separate parties for my family and Josh's (our house just isn't big enough for one big party). That's another $5 fee. Most of the invitations I looked at were $12 for a printable file. So if I add $10 in customization fees, and I only need 9 invitations... I'm spending $22 on 9 invites? That's when I looked at the designs and decided to DIY!

This design {found here} was my inspiration...

I used the following supplies:

• White cardstock
• Patterned scrapbook paper
• Plain contrasting cardstock
• Grosgrain ribbon
• Wallet-sized photos
• Scissors and/or paper cutter
• Scrapbook-quality glue

Here's how I did it:

{Side note: please excuse the poor quality of the photos. I was doing all party planning & prepping late at night after the girls were in bed, so the lighting is bad + I used my phone = ack}

I first created the design of the text using the word program on my computer. I played around with different fonts, colors and layouts until I was happy with the way it looked. All the while, I had to keep in mind that the cards would be 5x7", so I positioned the text so that it would print where I'd want it to be when the paper was cut to 5x7" {this was fairly simple just using the rulers along the top and side of the screen in the word program}. Once I had the design just the way I wanted it, I printed it out on plain white cardstock.

Since the invitations were going to be 5x7", I was able to print two per page. Once they were printed I used a 12" paper cutter {scissors would also do, you'd just have to measure and mark the paper carefully} to cut them to size.

{I printed in portrait orientation, cut vertically at 7" across, and then cut horizontally at 5" down the page to make two 5x7" cards. Since the cardstock was 8.5x11" I had some extra that needed to be trimmed off the bottom as well}

{What one 5x7" card looked like, printed and cut}

The next step was adding the decorative scrapbook paper. I chose a paper with a yellow chevron design. I wanted a simple band across the bottom of the invitation, so I measured and cut the bands to size and then glued them onto the cardstock with a few dots of scrapbook glue. Glue dots or probably any other adhesive would also work, you just don't want anything that will make the paper too wet so it doesn't look all wavy and wrinkly when it dries!

For the photo, I measured and cut pink cardstock rectangles to be just slightly larger than the size of the photos. I carefully centered the photos on the pink rectangles and glued them in place. Then I glued the whole thing onto the invitations.

The final touch was a band of grosgrain ribbon where the decorative paper met the cardstock. I measured the ribbon to be about 2" longer than the width of the invitation {so about 9"}. I applied a thin stripe of glue along the border of the decorative paper and pressed the ribbon on, leaving about an inch over the edge on each side. Then I flipped the invitation over, folded the ends of the ribbon down, and secured them with a dot of glue.

And the final product looked like this...

Here's another look at the inspiration photo for comparison. Not too bad, right?

It does take a little more of your time to DIY a project like this than it would to upload and order prints of a purchased file, but the cost savings is significant especially if you have some of these supplies on hand. Here's my cost breakdown:

Cardstock (had on hand) = Free
Decorative paper = $0.39 for one 12x12" sheet
Pink cardstock = $0.25 for one 8.5x11" sheet
Wallet photos = $0.50 for two sheets of 9 photos
Grosgrain ribbon = $1.98 for two 6' spools
Glue (had on hand) = Free
Paper cutter (had on hand) = Free

Grand Total = $3.12
Compare that to the customized Etsy price of $22.00 and remember that I only needed 9 invitations! That's over 85% savings.

With a little creativity, this design could be easily customized in countless different ways. A little ribbon, some colorful paper, any type of embellishment like the cute sun in the inspiration photo, or your own photos like I used, and you've got a beautiful invitation completely personalized for any occasion. One of the biggest advantages to DIYing this project, was that my invitations had texture and dimension. If I had purchased a printable file from Etsy, the whole thing would have printed like a photo- the ribbon, the sun embellishment and all would have just been a flat printed image on a piece of paper. I liked that the ribbon was actually ribbon on mine, and the embellishment {whatever I had chosen} was also 3 dimensional. 

You Are My Sunshine First Birthday Party

We have a one year old! I've spent the past few weeks planning and DIYing Reagan's "You Are My Sunshine" FIRST birthday party! I thought it would be a perfect theme for a late March birthday when we're just beginning to emerge from the cold, gray winter. It turned out to be even more perfect than I anticipated as the weekend was a complete weather wash-out. Saturday was a torrential downpour all day, and Sunday was a pouring rain-turned freak snow storm! Indeed, Reagan provided the only sunshine of the entire weekend and she was all the sunshine we needed :)

{Side note: I plan to write up tutorials for the things I DIYed, and I'll update this post with those links when I get them written. They'll be their own separate posts though}

Invitations

Here's a {kind of terrible} phone pic of the invitations. I found a few that I liked on Etsy via Pinterest but none were exactly what I was looking for. The more I looked at them, the more they looked DIY-able. I finally tried mocking up a few options myself with some cardstock and scrapbook paper and came up with a very similar result for a fraction of the cost.

Decorations

I made a simple felt birthday crown for her to {not} wear. You know how much children love to wear their birthday hats! And a paper bunting to decorate her high chair.

I did a birthday banner out of scrapbook paper, cardstock and ribbon. I also made a sun and clouds out of tissue paper puffs.

I made this canvas to impart the party theme and also as a hand-made piece of art for her bedroom :) 

I found that adorable "You are my Sunshine" photo frame on Amazon and knew it would be perfect for a little throwback newborn photo for the table :)

Had to have some striped paper straws, even though the birthday baby doesn't drink from a straw. What party in 2014 is complete without them?? 

It was also my opportunity to incorporate a mason jar. That's right, "a" mason jar. I originally envisioned them to actually drink from, but let's be serious. It's a party for a one-year-old with a bunch of other little kids.

Anyone on Pinterest has seen these adorable chalkboard posters with fun facts about the birthday baby. Once again, this was something I knew I could DIY. It may not be quite as perfect, or employ quite the variety of lettering as some of the ones for sale on Etsy, but I was rather proud of it.

The Food

The food was very simple. We just had some snacks and cupcakes. I made a "rainbow" fruit tray, and had some cut up cheese and Chex mix {SO original, I know!}.

The cupcakes were lemon with coconut frosting, made gluten free with coconut flour. The recipe needed some tweaking. Usually I do a test run of a new recipe but ran out of time, so the party batch was my first go. They were pretty good and very easy to make, but I'd  do a few things differently if I made them again.

Originally I had planned to frost them with an orange center and yellow beams around the edges to look like suns, but after baking 4 dozen of them at midnight I lost all desire to mix multiple colors of frosting and attempt any kind of artistic decoration. It's all good. No one complained. Not even the birthday baby ;)

The Fun

Our kids have lots of cousins so we felt they were plenty of guests. For fun, the kids actually just played in the playroom with toys we already have. They were excited enough to play with each other that I really didn't need any planned theme activities. 

I also skipped party favors. I know our siblings well enough to know that party favors are extremely unnecessary. I have done them in the past, but they do add a considerable load to the planning process (and the budget) if you're going to make them worthwhile. I don't like coming home from a birthday party with a bag full of cheap plastic choking hazards, so I'm not going to do that to others. And by the time you put nice, useful favors together you've spent $10 per child and hours planning, collecting supplies, and assembling said favors. All this to say: no feelings were hurt in the exclusion of party favors :)

A first birthday is such a fun milestone, and yet it's a little bit bittersweet. But if I learned anything about motherhood from our firstborn, it's that when one stage ends there are a million reasons to be excited for the next. We had a fun weekend full of birthday love for our sweet little one-year-old. What an amazing, joyful, sleepless, fun-filled first year we've had with Miss Reagan! We can't wait to see how she grows and learns and steals our hearts in year #2!

...Aaaand now it's time to get started on Carsen's "Princess Aurora" party on April 26th!

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Goodbye Gluten

The Luckiest {Household} has recently joined the ranks of many around the country/interwebz who have gone gluten-free. Being gluten-free has become so popular that it seems like, and is often referred to as, a bandwagon or fad diet. For many it may be, but even a little bit of research on the effects of gluten on your body is enough to make just about anyone question if they should be eating it.

For us, it started with my thyroid. Just before I got pregnant with Reagan I had some blood work that showed a very slightly low thyroid function, known as hypothyroidism. Since we were trying to get pregnant at the time, my doctor recommended that I see an endocrinologist, who prescribed a thyroid hormone supplement. When you're pregnant, hypothyroid is associated with lower IQ in babies, so even though I wasn't experiencing symptoms of hypothyroidism, it was best to go on meds for the health of the baby. I was totally fine with that.

Fast forward to after Reagan was born. I was given the option to stop taking the meds if I wanted since my numbers were so very slightly low. I am personally someone who hates taking medication unless I absolutely can't do without it, so given the choice, I decided to try to improve my hypothyroidism with dietary changes instead. When I started my research, I quickly learned that the thyroid is very similar to gluten on the molecular level, so if your body is sensitive to gluten and producing antibodies against it, they may also be attacking your thyroid {autoimmune hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's thyroiditis}. That, in addition to reading just-plain-scary stuff about gluten in your system, led me to the decision to go gluten-free at least for a while to see if it made a difference.

When you read about the process of going gluten free it can be a little overwhelming. Advice included throwing food away, cleaning your pantry top to bottom, and throwing away your toaster. Cross-contamination is a big deal for people with severe celiac, but since none of us had any digestive trouble I decided to just phase it out instead doing a cold-turkey clean sweep of the kitchen. We ate what we had and only bought gluten-free foods going forward.

The first thing we ran out of was bread since Carsen ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every single day for lunch. When the bread was gone I started giving her peanut butter and apples instead. At first I was worried that she'd be begging for her PBJs, but she never said a word. One week after the bread was gone, I also noticed that Carsen's eczema was completely cleared. We had been battling it for months, had switched to all-natural soaps and were applying Babyganics eczema cream to it 2-3 times a day to keep it under control. I realized I hadn't put the cream on her in days and yet it was clear. I immediately thought of the gluten - it was the only thing we had changed. About 2 weeks after that we had a crazy evening and decided it needed to be a pizza night {again, since none of us was suffering severe effects, this was kind of an "oh well" circumstance}. In a few days Carsen's hands were bright red and bubbled up with eczema again. That was enough confirmation for me that her eczema was a result of {or at the very least made worse by} gluten, and we needed to be strictly gluten-free.

Another thing I found when reading about going gluten-free was that most of the recommendations are to seek out certified gluten-free foods and avoid anything that could possibly be cross-contaminated. Again, I totally get that for people with severe reactions. For us so far, we're staying away from any foods that have wheat or wheat gluten, barley, or rye listed as an ingredient. For example, Cheerios are an oat-based cereal. Wheat is not an ingredient, but they are not certified or even labeled gluten-free because they may contain traces of wheat. So far those foods don't seem to be a problem for us, and I see no need to go extreme if it's not necessary.

In all honesty, the transition has not been difficult. We didn't eat a whole lot of wheat in the first place except for sandwiches and occasionally pasta or pizza for dinner. You do have to be careful with some pre-made foods like condiments, sauces, and soups since flour is sometimes used as a thickener, but for the most part I make those types of things myself. I also haven't purchased any GF specialty foods like GF bread or pasta. We're just finding alternatives, like apples and peanut butter instead of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The reality is that most of the alternatives are much healthier choices anyway {apples vs. bread is a shining example}. Pinterest is, as always, an amazing resource for finding recipes. For breakfast we do mostly smoothies or eggs. If we're in a hurry and need cereal, Chex and most granolas are GF. I eat salad a lot for lunch and the girls love peanut butter and fruit or peanut butter on a rice cake. Dinners have been the easiest since we normally just have meat and vegetables, occasionally rice. Snacks are a little tougher, but nuts, fruit, cheese, and raisins have all been our go-to options over the past few weeks. I have made several new specifically GF recipes that were really good like peanut butter cookies and brownies. I'll share a list of some of our favorite GF recipes in another post ;)

Have you ever considered going gluten-free? Did you worry it would be too hard? Feel free to ask away if you have questions about our GF transition. And if you're looking for information about gluten or reasons for going gluten-free, here are some links I came across/found helpful while doing my research:

How Gluten Wreaks Havoc on Your Gut - article by Dr. Amy Myers
Gluten and the Thyroid - an article by Dr. Mark Hyman
The Gluten-Thyroid Connection - an article by Chris Kresser. Noteworthy: while I don't discredit him and actually found the info in this article to be especially helpful, I feel it is always worth noting when the author of an article is also selling a book/program/seminar or otherwise making their living on that information.
How to Go Gluten Free - a really great blog post that advises the RIGHT way to go gluten-free: skip the fake packaged products and just eat real, naturally gluten-free foods!

I personally like to think about going gluten-free not in terms of what I can't have, but what I should have instead. After all, it's a choice to be healthier. I'm simply leaving out unhealthy foods and eating something healthier in their place :)

Keep Calm and Princess On

Our 3.9-year old loves princesses. It started early. She was mesmerized by jewelry before the age of one. Before she knew her colors by name {between 1.5-2 years old} she was consistently choosing pink, yes, choosing. Around the same time, she started asking to wear dresses every. single. day. Then came the discovery of tiaras, and before we knew it we were living with a princess.

You may have noticed that princesses are getting some bad press these days. Some would probably say our daughter has fallen victim to the gender specific marketing of toys and so-called "Princess culture," a device of our capitalist society to keep women in the kitchen where they belong. Others might even say we've dropped the ball as parents by letting this happen. You see, princesses send the wrong message to young girls- that they're helpless and need a man to save them. Princesses don't really send the message that girls should focus on their education or a career either since they generally dance around a castle all day, helpless and waiting for a man. Worst of all, princesses tend to be pretty, wear pretty dresses, and have lots of jewelry {so as to attract a man}. This leads young girls to believe that their value lies only in their physical appearance. 

I don't entirely disagree with those concerns. And yet, we let her play princesses to her heart's content and let her choose pink toys, clothes, shoes, crayons, you-name-it, whenever she wants.

Here are 5 reasons we're going to keep calm and princess on:

1. Princesses have come a long way since Cinderella.

In case you haven't seen a princess movie lately, they're not all damsels-in-distress anymore. In fact, most of the princesses in the more recent movies are the heroines of the story. Carsen hasn't seen most of the princess movies, but the ones she has seen have strong main characters. Anna & Elsa are her current favorites, and if you haven't seen Frozen, you should. Additionally, not all princesses are a creation of the Walt Disney corporation! What?! I know, it's shocking. Seriously though, there is still real actual royalty out there in the world and some of them are amazing role models. The obvious example is Kate Middleton, who Carsen knows and recognizes as a princess. She's certainly beautiful and wealthy and married to a prince. But she's also a good person, a mother, and a great role model. I have no problem with my daughters looking up to her.

2. "Princess culture" and the "pink aisles" aren't a device of evil capitalists, and we're not their victims.

They're a device of parents and the other people who buy toys. Quick econ lesson for ya: In a capitalist system, consumers control the production of goods and services through demand. What people buy is what producers will make. If people buy a bunch of sparkly pink princessy stuff, that's what they'll make. If people buy pink kitchens, and pink baby dolls, and Barbies with tons of makeup on, that's what they'll make. A capitalist (a.k.a. "free") market also means we have the freedom to buy what we like and leave what we don't like on the shelf. So, if you want your daughters to play with trucks and dinosaurs, just walk 2 aisles over and there they are waiting for you. If you want your son to play with a kitchen or doll, just buy him one. It's that simple. Show toy makers what you want them to make more of by buying those toys and leaving the rest. You "vote" with your dollars. Our children aren't victims of evil toy makers. No one is trying to keep our daughters down. They're just doing smart business and trying to make their living like everyone else by giving consumers what they demand. Personally I'd much rather live in that society than one where toy makers make what they think is good for kids.

3. The bigger deal you make it, the bigger deal it becomes. 

Just like when a kid says a curse word, you don't want to make too big of a fuss over it because then they'll just keep saying it. She loves princesses. That ship has sailed. If I were to attempt to dissuade her, point her in another direction, or casually phase out the princesses it will just give them power. It's something she's attracted to, so when I start pulling her away from it she'll only want it more. Allowing her to indulge makes it just another thing we play, like sidewalk chalk and doctor, and much less likely to have some dramatic bearing on who she thinks she should be when she grows up.

4. I have no problem with domesticity, as society seems to. 

Why is it that we're so afraid of little girls playing princess or dolls or kitchen? We're afraid they'll grow up to cook and clean and raise children. God forbid! Guess what I do? Yup, I cook and clean and raise my children. I also have a Master's degree. I'm going to let you in on a secret... education, career and domestic life aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, I consider myself to have the best of it all. I'm doing what is more important to me than anything else in the world- raising my children, and I also have a solid education and degree that gives me the option to work on another passion of mine whenever I'm ready to. Sadly, society today doesn't respect domesticity as a vocation. We place value on high-powered careers above marriage, family and just about anything else. That's what I want to protect my girls from- growing up to feel like motherhood isn't a worthy choice. If they're not a highly-paid, highly-educated professional with a demanding, life-controling career then their life's work isn't valuable. Well, they are my life's work, and there is positively nothing more valuable on this planet or anything more worthy of my time, energy, creativity, or passion. I hope that they'll cherish our time together as much as I do, and that they'll want the same for their own children. None of which means they can't have a career and an education. There's plenty of time for that when babies are grown.

5. I parent, therefore it's not a big deal. 

Yes, if you park your child in front of Cinderella from the ages of 2-10 and never bother to cultivate any other interests or be any other kind of role model for her, then she'll probably grow up trying to be Cinderella. On the contrary, if you actually parent then you probably have nothing to worry about. We talk about and do all sorts of things in addition to playing princesses or babies or cooking in her play kitchen. We read together, we visit friends, we go to the library, we play at the playground, we do all types of art, we play music, we dance and sing, we run, we play ball. She loves many other things, she has many other interests, and she sees examples of strong, intelligent women all around her. I'm not even remotely concerned that playing princess is going to cause her to grow up believing she's helpless.

So, to all the moms & dads of little princesses out there: don't worry, you're not ruining them. Let them be themselves. Let them be little girls. Let them dress up, and dream, and imagine. Let them choose their toys and what color they want them to be, and it's ok if that's pink ;) Girls don't have to play with hammers and dump trucks to know their worth. They just need loving parents. Seriously, the rest is details.

Kale & Brussels Sprouts Salad

Three words: Easy. Amazing. Healthy {mostly}. 

Does that count as four words?? 

I found this recipe on Pinterest. It had me at kale bacon. If you're a kale or brussels sprouts fan, or if you're a salad person, or if you're just trying to eat more veggies you need to try this. It's simple to make, packed with super-healthy kale and brussels sprouts, and it's surprisingly delicious. The flavors are all bold, it has the right amount of crunchy texture mixed with the softness of the cheese. It would also lend itself well to a variety of other add-ins {off hand I'm thinking hard-boiled eggs, dried cranberries, diced red pepper, black olives, red onion... you get the picture}.

Here's the recipe...

Ingredients:

Salad:

2-3 cups of kale, washed and chopped

1 lb. Brussels sprouts {I think I eyeballed it and used 3-4 sprouts}, finely shredded

3-4 slices of bacon/turkey bacon, baked crisp and chopped

1/4 cup roasted almonds

1/2 cup pecorino cheese

Dressing:

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp dijon mustard

1 tsp shallot, finely minced

1 small garlic clove, finely minced

1/8 tsp kosher salt

Pinch black pepper

Instructions:

Combine kale and brussels sprouts in a medium bowl. In a small bowl, jar, or salad dressing bottle, whisk together all dressing ingredients. Toss dressing and greens until well combined. Top with cheese, bacon, and almonds.

I made a few small modifications to this recipe. I left the shallots out of the dressing, skipped the almonds, and used feta instead of pecorino cheese since I already had it for another recipe. I also stored the salad in jars since I planned to eat it for lunch over the course of a few days and wanted it to keep nicely. Also because of that, I decided not to mix in the bacon and cheese. I just added those when I got the salad out to eat each day. I had about 4 mason jar-sized portions from what I made. 

When I blew through my first batch, I made another and tried it with this dressing instead. The flavors were good, I just personally have a hard time with plain greek yogurt. The sour/bitter/bite whatever-you-want-to-call-it just doesn't work for me. It especially didn't work with the already bite-y feta in this salad. If that's your thing though, give it a try. I'm ordinarily a big honey-mustard fan.

I love to have such an easy and healthy go-to lunch that I can prep ahead and have on hand, ready to eat. I find when that's the case, I have no trouble sticking to clean, healthy lunches. The middle of the day is usually no time to start measuring, mixing, and chopping around here so simple recipes like this are one are exactly what I need :)

What healthy stuff are you eating for lunch??

The No-Cry Sleep Solution & A Sleep Update

A little while ago I wrote about some of the struggles we've been having getting Reagan to take regular naps. She had been doing pretty well at night, never put up a fight when it was time to lay down, but for most of her naps would wake up after 30 minutes. I had tried a handful of different things- laying her down earlier, laying her down later, swaddling her, not swaddling her, putting her to bed in her crib, putting her to bed in the co-sleeper in our room... you get the idea. None of those things changed her pattern for the better, some made it worse.

Feeling frustrated, I decided to check out The No-Cry Nap Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. As a practitioner of Attachment Parenting, I knew I wanted to try solutions that were as gentle as possible and didn't involve abandoning her to cry until she couldn't cry anymore and just passed out. So, I read the book and loved it. I decided to go with The No-Cry Nap Solution instead of The No-Cry Sleep Solution because we were struggling much more with nap time than bed time at night, and I thought it might have some insights that were more specific to our issue.

As far as the book itself, I thought it was great. I liked the way it was broken down by various different struggles and solutions so that if you knew what you were having trouble with you could go right to that section and see what was suggested. I personally decided to read through the majority of the book anyway just in case I found ideas that we could use. The advice was practical, which I appreciated. There was also enough variety of solutions offered that you could choose what works for your family. Personally, we live in a multi-level house, so pushing the baby around in the stroller until she fell asleep and then parking her in her bedroom (where you eventually want her to sleep) was not an option for us.

On the other hand, we hung blackout curtains and downloaded a white noise CD right away. We began using her bedroom for nap time {instead of the co-sleeper in our room where she slept at night}, and with the dark curtains and white noise, she was taking 2+ hour naps in less than a week! It was pretty miraculous. Just when we felt like we had tried adjusting every variable and nothing was going to convince her to sleep, three simple changes made all the difference. I can't say for sure if one of the three was the real key or if all of them together was some magic formula, but finally something worked.

And just like in the movies when you think, "well that was easy, everything is resolved and we're only 20 minutes in!" ...the plot thickens.

On New Year's day Carsen came down with a cold, and by the weekend Reagan had it. It was a pretty nasty cough complete with sneezing and runny nose. Of course, this interfered with sleep. Reagan started waking up after napping for only a short time again. I knew she was having a hard time breathing even with the humidifier in the room. This is where I made the crucial mistake. One day she woke up coughing and crying and I couldn't get her calmed down enough to go back to sleep. When I brought her downstairs with me she fell asleep in my arms. I didn't have the heart to take her back upstairs and put her in her bed {knowing it would wake her right up}, so I did what I think most moms would do and snuggled my sick little baby. She slept for another hour. Unfortunately, from that point on, naps became hit or miss. I figured it was partially due to her cold, and partially because she was just out of rhythm from being sick. Then a few days later we were going to visit grandparents for dinner and she had skipped a morning nap, then woke up after a 30 minute afternoon nap. Knowing that she really needed the rest, I decided to hold her and let her sleep a little longer. After that naps became a huge struggle. She woke up after 30 minutes every time and refused to go back to sleep unless she was being held. Now that our reforms were no longer doing the trick, I was kind of back at square one and wondering what to do next.

Here's a confession: I began to realize that the No-Cry approach might not cut it.

As I tried desperately to get her to fall asleep and stay asleep, things just got worse and worse. She went from taking short naps, to waking up as soon as I put her in bed, to not even falling asleep after nursing like she always had. She would start crying and wiggling as soon as she finished nursing because she knew the next step was the bed. I tried holding her for 20 minutes to make sure she was good and asleep, but the screaming started again as soon as I'd lean forward even the slightest bit to put her into the crib. I tried staying with her, rubbing and patting her back, shushing and soothing. She eventually wouldn't even stay laying down for me to help her fall asleep. It was hold her or nothing. Every nap had become this traumatic, hour-long screaming event. Hardly a no-cry situation.

To make matters a little more complicated, this was all happening right before Josh took a trip with his brothers for 4 days during which the girls and I stayed with my mom. While our nap schedule and routine was falling apart, we were about to really start over in a new house, new room, new bed. Cheers! That was a week ago {Thursday-Monday}. I can say it didn't go terribly. She slept better at nigh than she did for naps. I just decided to power through and get back on track when we got home.

We returned home on Monday afternoon. Both girls conked out right away in the car on the way home even though it's less than a 30 minute drive. I was prepared for a rough night, but was resolved that if it was going to be a rough night anyway, we were going all in. Reagan was going in her crib in her room, for nap time and bed time, and we weren't looking back.

Here's another confession: We kind of cried it out... and it worked.

I realized that going into her room every time she cried was just encouraging her to cry. At 9 months old, having previously taken stellar naps in her crib, during which I had witnessed her stirring and going back to sleep on her own, I knew this was not a matter of her needing my help to fall asleep, or being frightened or uncomfortable in her room. For the record, the case Attachment Parenting makes against CIO is that the baby is crying because they need comfort from mom or dad and assistance falling asleep. Only because I knew that was not the case for her, was I willing to leave the room. I remain a firm believer in Attachment Parenting and strongly disagree with CIO for younger babies. So Monday night began a new routine that I was resolved to stick to. I nursed her, rocked her, kissed her and put her in bed. The only reason I'd go back in was if she dropped her paci out of the crib. In that case I went in, gave her the paci, laid her back down, and left. She cried, but not for long. I knew that she knew she was in there to go to sleep, and that's what she did. She woke up once or twice during the night and after a few minutes of fussing went right back to sleep. Tuesday we did the same thing for naps. Again, she cried when I left the room but then took nice long naps. Tuesday night she only woke up once. She took great naps the rest of the week and by last night {Thursday night} she slept through without waking up at all- or at least without crying.

In less than a week, she is barely crying as I leave the room and quiet by the time I make it 3 steps down the hall to the stairs. She and I and my husband are all much better rested. She is more content throughout the day and has even been more adventurous exploring the house like never before. I can't say enough about the difference that extra sleep has made for the whole family. There has certainly been extensive research on the health benefits of adequate sleep, and everything I've read about health from losing weight to balancing hormones to clearing acne cites adequate sleep as a recommendation. In the No-Cry Nap Solution, Elizabeth Pantley explains in great detail the reasons why naps are vital to children's growth and development. She describes the "gifts" of nap time- the benefits children get during naps that they miss otherwise, even when they get adequate night time sleep. To say the least, this has been a major positive change in The Luckiest household.

As I have often said, more than anything I'm a believer in doing what works. I love AP. Love it. I will continue to use it forever and ever. But I have to do what works for my family and my children, even if it's not what AP recommends. If there is one thing we all must be as parents, it's flexible. In this case, flexibility paid off. We tried something new and scary, something I thought I'd never do, and we were rewarded greatly. I think the take-away message here is to never say never, and trust your gut. Despite what my philosophy-of-choice recommended, we branched out because it wasn't working for us. I knew leaving the room would teach her that bed time was bed time, no games. I listened to that mom-voice, and here we are!

I'd love to hear from others if you had sleep troubles with your little ones and what worked for you! I'd also enjoy hearing stories from others who had to depart from their parenting philosophies when something just wasn't working. Have you ever tried something you thought you'd never do as a parent??