Sleeping Soundly

Before I even begin to write this post, I need to de-jinx myself by saying that all things in this world are temporary, especially baby-related things, and this is only a report on what has been happening the last couple weeks, not a prediction of things to come.

SO, with that disclaimer...

For the last week and a half, Jacob has been sleeping through the night!!!

Around four weeks ago, we started emphasizing a bedtime routine that includes dimming the lights, putting on pj's, reading a story, singing some songs, having a final nursing, swaddling him, and rocking him to sleep. The first week went well, but the last phase of rocking would take up to 45 minutes and several times we resorted to sticking him in his stroller and taking a walk to lull him to sleep. After about a week, though, he started predictably drifting to sleep fairly peacefully.

Up until about a week and a half ago, Jacob would wake up to nurse around midnight and then around 3 and then get up sometime between 5 and 8. But then he started dropping his midnight nurse. Then he started sleeping just a little bit longer. And for the last five or six nights he has slept consistently from 8:30pm to 7:00am (a couple times even longer!) and only getting up at 3am to nurse. This means that I get at least two chunks of sleep around 3 or 4 hours each, and THAT, my friends, counts as sleeping through the night!!! Even though he'll still get up in the middle of the night for many more months (little babies got to eat!), he rarely fusses and usually drifts right back off to sleep, so I am beginning to enjoy that quiet mid-night time together instead of desperately wishing I were back in bed.

Naps, however, are a different story. Some days he naps on and off all day long. Other days he won't close his eyes for more than 10 minutes at a time and won't let me put him down. We don't really have a routine for naps because each day is a little different, what with doctor appointments, visitors, yoga classes, etc. I've tried generally to establish a long morning nap and a long afternoon nap, but sometimes he really fights against it, even when he's obviously tired.

Today, however, when he started fussing and resisting his nap, I tried two things that I never had tried before. First, I swaddled him, which we always do at night but never do during the day - don't know why, it just never occurred to me. Second, I set him in his crib and dimmed the lights and turned on some music. He sleeps at night in the bassinet next to our bed, so the crib is entirely new territory. This has been so successful that I have showered, eaten lunch, and written this post, and HE'S STILL ASLEEP. Fantastic! This is the first time that I have attempted to shower while he was in the other room instead of carrying him in on his nap-pillow and having him sleep on the bathroom floor. Success!!! What progress we are making! Although we don't get to call it progress, I guess, until we can replicate our results.

There is nothing quite like a sleeping baby. I could just stare at him all day long.