Sleep Dilemma

My little girl turned 7 months! She is sitting on her own now and quite the little babbler. One of her favorite new habits is sticking her tongue out and blowing spit over and over again. Quite funny at first... but not so funny when babyfood and milk fly everywhere!

Now one of the hardest things is trying to sleep train her. I've read so many sleep books... bottom line... there are 2 trains of thought. On one end of the spectrum is feed/sleep etc on demand. There's a good book called "No Cry Sleep Solution" that I read. At the other end of the spectrum is to just let them cry it out. Well... we've been back and forth and I know consistency is key but it's been soo hard! Now we're going back to trying the cry it out way again... more specifically the Ferber method.

One bad habit that I knew I was forming but had no heart to stop was the sleep association with nursing. Now I get up 2 sometimes 3 or 4 times at night still nursing her. It's funny the lectures I used to give advice to new moms about not nursing their babies to sleep... how it is a bad association.. forms bad sleep habits.. cavities.. yadayada. Now not only is it a hard habit for baby to break.. I"m finding it hard to break myself! How precious to hold little sleeping baby so close... how sweet and how much I'm going to miss this one day when she no longer fits in my arms and no longer wants to snuggle for so long...

So.. sigh. Trying to find some balance.

Pros for not nursing to sleep:
- better sleep habit for baby and for me
- less zombie like behavior on my part from such sleep deprivation
- maybe less needy and attached kid? (we hear stories of 11 year olds who still crawl in bed between their parents...)

Cons for not nursing to sleep:
- cry cry cry.. hard habit to break
- i'll miss holding my sweet little girl to sleep
- i feel selfish and like i'm not meeting her needs
- longterm emotional scarring??

Oh and apparently, according to my mom - I had to have a bottle in my mouth to fall asleep until I was 3! I also remember following my parents back and forth from one room to the next crawling in between them (also when I was 3). They would wait until they think I'm asleep and sneak off but haha.. I'm too light a sleeper and would just follow them. And look at how I turned out! *grin*

Wonder what lays ahead...