Sleep on It

I've been a little loose on letting Charlotte fall asleep in my arms rather than her crib for nap times. But I'm going back to work next week and I want this sleepy time with her.

Sleeping in her Nana Nancy's arms.

I hesitate to write this blog post for fear that doing so will end a streak—a streak so unbelievably, unexpectedly awesome that I live in constant fear that it will come to an end. My darling, most amazing, truly fabulous baby girl sleeps through the night. On the evening of March 22, Charlotte shocked us when she slept for 7 solid hours. Around 2:00 a.m., Chris panicked and gave her a good poke. She stirred to let him know she was still alive, and then back to sleep she went. From then on, she did the occasional 6- or 7-hour stint, but usually still had her late-night feeding. But one feeding per night was a massive improvement on her earlier, unpredictable sleep schedule. However, for the past 2 weeks, Charlotte has slept consistently for 7+ hours, with the stretches inching upwards. She hit 8 hours on Tuesday night, followed by 9 hours the next night, 9.5 hours the night after that, and then a whopping 10 hours last night! My pessimistic husband thinks our incredibly good fortune will be tempered by a demonic, colicky, non-sleeping second child. I fear that this is just a delightful phase that Charlotte is going through, and soon we’ll be back to the torture of constant night-wakings. As you can see, we’re both very positive thinkers. When I read the sleeping book Charlotte’s pediatrician recommended, I found myself insanely jealous of the obnoxious parent vignettes smugly declaring that by using Method A, B, or C, their baby now sleeps through the night. At that time I would have done anything—anything—to get Charlotte to sleep better. So what method did I use? Umm, dumb luck and the implementation of just a wee bit of the pediatrician’s sage advice. The dumb luck portion deserves 90% of the credit. Charlotte appears to have a temperament that allows her to independently fall asleep and then stay asleep. I am more grateful for this than I can possibly say. Second, putting her in a crib (i.e., moving her out of the bassinet, which she had almost outgrown anyway) in her very own room has also helped. We don't react to her every stir or whimper and she simply seems more peaceful in her own space. Finally, the pediatrician recommended a modified version of “cry it out” sleep training, which just consists of putting her down to sleep when drowsy and then letting her cry for 15 minutes (if she chooses to cry—sometimes she just goes to sleep), checking on her and rubbing her little belly and head (but not picking her up), and repeating again in 15 minutes if necessary, and then one more time. After the third time, we’re allowed to pick her up and soothe her however we want. Fortunately, Charlotte has never made it to the 45-minute mark. If she had, I think I would have died. Instead, she barely hits 20 minutes of crying. We’ve only used this method twice (she usually falls asleep by herself just fine), and it is torture. I pace and pace and pace in our bedroom, and as soon as the clock hits the 15-minute mark, I bolt to the nursery and try to convince Charlotte that I’m abandoning her for her own good. This modified cry-it-out method seems to work well, but I’m not about to sit here and self-righteously spew out parenting judgments about the importance of consistency (frankly, we're not terribly consistent) or developing independence for the baby. No, we just got lucky by being able to match a sleep-training method to the personality, age, and physiological state of our kid that works. Besides, some parents would be appalled by us letting a 10-week-old cry it out for 15 whole minutes. But all I can say is this: As a result of Charlotte getting the sleep she needs, I greet a well-rested, grinning, happy baby in the morning.

Oh, how I hope it lasts.