There's Nothing Up My Sleeve

Yesterday my friend, Nicole, called to ask me advice about getting her baby to sleep through the night. She specifically asked if I knew the magic to make her baby sleep at night. Me? The woman who's baby peed on her this morning and puked on her this afternoon and didn't change her shirt either time because it wasn't that bad and it would dry? Um, yeah, not so much. Remember, I'm the woman who was wondering if it was worth getting up for a couple of hours to get the baby on a routine where she slept all night when I could feed her and be done in 15 minutes. She's still not a perfect sleeper. We're (okay, mostly I'm) still getting up with her at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. most mornings to feed her and put her back to sleep for another hour or so before our day begins way too early.

There is one thing I've worked out. I don't know that I had much to do with it, but maybe with a consistent bedtime routine, which is one thing we've always had with all three of our kids, it just kind of was inevitable. Amanda now goes to bed without crying. At all. Even if she's awake. I know, I'm shocked too. I'm not even telling you this prematurely. She's been doing it for probably a month now, I just haven't had time to write about it. It's truly fabulous. Where before I either had to put her down completely asleep, which doesn't teach her very much about how to put herself back to sleep in the middle of the night, or she would cry for 5-10 minutes the second she sensed I was going to put her in bed, now she just lets me put her down and either rolls over or snuggles up in her blanket and watches me leave. Occasionally there is one quick cry of discontent, but otherwise silence. I can even walk back into the room to get something and she's still awake and she sees me and doesn't make a peep. I don't know what I did, but I deserve it.

I don't mean that from a toot your own horn sort of way, because there are plenty of things that I haven't done right this time around, I mean it from an I haven't gotten very much sleep in the last 11 months and I deserve one in the win column sort of way. This is what it means to me: it's been a tough year of adjustment, but we are finally getting to a place where it's not so hard. It's all coming together. I know it shouldn't have taken a year, and for some people it doesn't, but for some, unknown reason we've really struggled this year. Not as a couple, not our marriage, just trying to find the balance, our new normal. This is just one sign that we're getting back on track. We'd be even further along if she would just sleep a little longer in the morning, but you can't win them all.

I don't have any magic, in fact I wish someone would pass some along to me, but hopefully we're getting past all the sleep issues and life will come more into focus. I want to enjoy my kids, and the time I have with them, and this little victory makes it just that much easier.