[DoulaClara]

Were you keeping her in the crib, or are you planning on her having a toddler or twin bed?

We switched Gianna to a twin bed in January. We had been putting her in the lowered Arms Reach for the first few hours of the night, and then bringing her to our bed, but I was still pregnant then (and it was the beginning of the end) and leaning way over to put her in the lowered AR was painful and caused an increase in the bleeding. So, we put the twin in her room, and took apart the AR, and just let her play on it during the day, and read stories, put some stuffed animal friends in it, etc. She was really excited about it, and at that time, I was nursing her down still, so she would nurse to sleep and I would roll away.

Now, she hasn't nursed in about six weeks, but we still have maintained a fairly steady bedtime ritual- after bath, she streaks through the house naked and jumps on the dogs bed (to John's extreme dismay), and I collect her diaper and jammies. We head into her room, get her dressed, and then John reads her three stories. We pray, he leaves, and I turn on her fan and her Celtic tunes. Then I snuggle her (for anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours on some wacky, wacky nights) until she falls asleep (insert lots of tossing and turning, and requests to go potty), and I scootch out of there. It's taken many weeks to get into a rhythm and I know that there will be steps forward and backward, but knowing that, we've been relaxed enough so that it never turned into an ordeal for her.

To help her feel more secure, I stick a body pillow on one side of the bed (I would never do this prior to 18 months) and she's got a bed rail on the other. She does have blankets, but hates them, so I usually nestle them against her feet, because she likes her feet to be propped up on things.

Good luck! I think if you turn it into a cozy, fun routine, she'll adapt fairly well! Experiment to see what works well, what revs her up more than relaxes her (I've found that if I talk while trying to snuggle her down, she gets very active and bouncy) and you'll hit a rhythm before long!