The bedtime conundrum

The bedtime conundrum: Where do we go from here?

This has been an interesting 4 months in regards to O's sleeping arrangements and such. When we brought O home from the hospital, we had her in a little bassinet. After a few glorious nights of sleep (compared to the last few weeks of pregnancy and then the sleepless nights at the hospital) she decided that she had had enough of that and began to wake every 45 minutes. All she wanted to do was eat, be held or to lie on my chest to fall asleep. She would do anything it seemed to stay out of her bassinet and to keep from laying on her back.

Come to find out at around 2 weeks old, O was diagnosed with severe reflux and was put on medicine to try and control it. It was then suggested that we put her in something that would allow her to sleep at an incline. So that was when we heard about things wonderful invention called the rock n play. We ran out in the middle of the night and purchased one at Walmart. It was actually the Snug a Bear rock n play and for the first time at 3 weeks old, we finally got more than 45 minutes of sleep at a time! We slept for 3 and 4 hour stretches! It was glorious.

Then after about 2 weeks in the RNP, she started crying and waking up in the middle of the night every 45 minutes - 1 1/2 hours. It made me want to pull out my hair. She would only sleep long stretches again if she was in my arms or in our bed. We weren't really thrilled about bed sharing/ co sleeping but we did what worked for us those few nights. I went out and bought a co-sleeper because I figured that would be safer than free rolling around with us of the bed. She wasn't a fan of the co-sleeper and only slept in it for less than a week before she was completely over it. So back to the RNP we went.

Fast forward a few more weeks and by week 10 we were in some what of a routine. We half way knew what to expect when we put her down for bed in the rock n play (RNP for short). Come to week 11 though, we were screwed because that was when I returned back to work and it seemed our whole world got flipped upside down. She was no longer going to sleep in her RNP, she tried to buck her bed time and her bed time routine. It was a nightmare for a momma who needed to be up at 4am to go to work. So we incorporated her swing into the mix.

Starting at 12 weeks, we were tired of the long nights and fighting her tooth and nail on sleep. So we put her in the swing at bed time and then transferred her back in her RNP for the rest of the night once she was out. That worked for a couple of weeks. Even though she stopped resisting sleep in the beginning, she was still waking up every 2 to 2 1/2 hours or so to eat or possibly because she was uncomfortable in the RNP.

So this brings us to now. We're at a cross roads. Do we keep her in the RNP where this might be a short fluke and she is familiar with her surroundings but not sleeping as well as she possibly could be? Or do we move her into another sleeping device (Crib, bassinet what have you) and put her in her own room now and just suck it up and hope that this move will make her more comfortable even if it causes some major rocking of the boat/ sleepless inconvenience on our part?

Decisions, decisions.