Sleeping. Beauty.

Gillian began sleeping in our bed, officially making it a "family bed"-an official term from "experts", about three days after she came home. At that time, she was 4 lbs, and I never knew how something that weighs 4 lbs could disturb my sleep so much. She grunted, she stretched, she whined, she grunted some more...when she was quiet I thought she might have stopped breathing, and had to check for the rise and fall of her chest. We got up in the wee hours of the morning to feed her-did you know that they replay late night tv even later in the night? Anyway, in desperation, I pulled her into bed one night. I discovered that she was quiet and happy sleeping snuggled up to my body, and we both slept better and longer that way. So, she became a bed Bean early on. Later on, I read that "cosleeping" is a foundation of "attachment parenting"; really, all I wanted was to sleep.

We coslept till last Saturday night. It made night nursing a breeze (I didn't even have to get up to feed her) because I learned how to nurse her laying down. Side-laying while nursing is fabulous because you get so good at it neither of you even really wake up. Anyhoo, we decided to try to get the Bean into her own bed to avoid having her sleep in our bed forever, so we started putting her down in a "cosleeper" at night-that's a little bed that attaches to my side of the bed. The rationale is that she has the comfort of knowing I'm right there, but she is in her own bed and will learn to go to sleep on her own. AND, in our case, the bed could and should do something besides hold my breast pump and random junk for $139.

So, Saturday was the day. She has been home almost 3 months, and is developmentally 2 months old. Most sleep books say the "sleep training" occurs between 3-4 months, and that is when habits form. To avoid problems with getting her in her own bed later on, we started putting her down in our bed a few weeks ago with a musical mobile, in the dark bedroom, with a low watt bulb dimly shining through the slats in the closet door so she will associate these things with bedtime. By Saturday, we started a new part-nurse, diaper change, get in sleepsack and hat, rock to sleep, then bedtime. Unbelieveably, the outcome so far is magical (knock on wood). No whining, no crying, no fussing...in fact, the first night she slept 5 hours straight before waking, the second night she slept 9 hours stright, and last night she slept 8.5 hours straight-heavenly. When she wakes up I pull her into bed and she finished the rest of the night next to me. I'll keep doing that for a couple more weeks, then she'll go back in her bed after eating. The goal is by three months, her sleeping in her own space all night.

Apparently, sleep is the cornerstone to baby's mental well-being (not surprising), and both quality and quantity are vitally important. Like, no sleep in moving things (doesn't allow for deep enough sleep to count), you're suppose to put a baby G's age down for a nap after 1-2 hours of wakefulness (someone tell her this, please...she is not a happy napper), your nap/night sleep Schedule should be written in stone, and you should give up your any activities that occur during baby's sleep time or risk creating a monster and/or create long-lasting health problems, like insomnia. All the advice you need to make you think that you will cause irreparable harm if you deviate from said Schedule. Excellent. Another thing to worry about.