Our Sleeping Through the Night Strategy, or lack thereof.

Since I mentioned that Adelyn slept through the night sans-Nap Nanny, two things have happened. One, she woke up for an hour last night to eat, so, again my theory that as soon as I brag about sleep it always comes back to my bite me in the ass, and, two, I learned a lot about Adelyn and the little person she's becoming.

We didn't really do anything definite, no concrete strategy. I followed some lovely readers' suggestions and looked into different techniques and routines, but as usual I got bored or frustrated and just stuck to what we were doing before. Which is a whole lot of whatever sort of felt right at the moment, be it letting her cry for a few minutes or rushing to comfort her. We had a basic rule--for the general fussing right after she's put down, and the generic "someone come entertaaaain me" middle of the night freak-out, we tried to wait ten minutes before intervening. And then we'd go in her room, rub her back, shush her, pick her up if the freak-out had reached inconsolability, and then we'd crawl back in bed and do this until it worked. Every ten minutes.

I think the main thing that changed as far as "sleep training" versus what we were doing before, back when we depended on the ultra-comfy Nap Nanny to do our nighttime parenting for us, is that we stopped rushing to Adelyn's side the second she woke up. Because before I did this, this overbearing, overreactive first-time-mom kind of thing. It's a strength and a weakness of my parenting. I worry too much about everything. We never let her full-on cry it out, but we slowly got our message across that unless something has gone wrong or she's truly scared or hungry, night time is for sleeping, period. And mommy and daddy are here to help but we are here to help you learn to sleep. I realized that most of the nighttime fits weren't due to anything but simple frustration. Frustration that her sleep crutch was gone, that something had changed and she had no say in it. And parents can help with the hunger, the soothing, the big and small fixes necessary throughout babyhood and life. But dealing with simple frustration--that's a personal battle, one that I see Adelyn conquering more and more each day.

Jason and I really leaned on each other, too. And for the millionth time I commend every single parent out there, because I don't know if I could do it. Not with an ounce of sanity intact, anyway. Jason and I took shifts, and we stuck to them. We alternated if one of us had to get up really early in the morning for something, and we picked up each other's slack if one of us really needed an extra hour or two. Jason is the most amazing father and parenting partner I could ever dream up. I'm lucky. (So is Adelyn.)

It took a week of us not rushing to her side for the message to sink in, and then the nighttime wakings went from three times, to two, to one, then she was just up for a quick bottle, and then for three nights in a row she slept straight through, for twelve glorious hours. And then last night teething reared its ugly, sleep-depriving head, and Highlands Teething Tablets saved the day. Er, night.

I'm not going to say our sleep troubles are over. Because they never are, I think. I learned my lesson about that a few months ago, after our three-month-marathon of sleeping through the night every single night without exception came to a screeching halt. There will be another battle to face. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow.

But one thing's for sure--Adelyn has learned to sleep without her Nap Nanny. And all it took was a little sleep training on her part--and mostly mine--that she would be okay without me magically appearing by her side every time she got a little frustrated.

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Life is Good.

The face of a baby who slept through the night without her Nap Nanny.

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Progress, there and back.

Today, for the first time, Addy opened her mouth and let the food in. So far introducing solids has been a losing battle, for the poor food splattered and wasted all over the three of us and the living room, for me, who usually gets frustrated after ten minutes of forced-feeding and gives up, and for Addy, the reigning queen of the household, who never gets angrier than when she's doing something she doesn't want to do.

But today, her mouth opened to welcome the spoonful of mushed bananas, and almost half of the food made it into her mouth.

Progress.

And while one part of her baby story moves forward, another takes a giant step back.

I've only dabbled in sleep-training research up until this point, because we never really needed it. We'd have bad nights where I'd find myself googling MAKE MY BABY SLEEP at three a.m., and also nights like the one when I made an impulse purchase of The No Cry Sleep Solution on Amazon. But for the most part Adelyn's sleep would regulate itself before I had a chance to get too involved. (I read two chapters of that book before I put it down for something non-baby related.) Sometimes all the baby literature is just too much for me. The theories, the schedules, the opinions--the heated opinions. I don't want to follow a regimen. I don't have the energy to document every second of Adelyn's schedule for the professionals at Baby Center to consult. I don't have the strength to listen to Adelyn cry for long without doing something. Letting your baby cry until they finally fall asleep, without any intervention, is called "extinction." "Extinction crying."

No. No, and no. Nothing involving the word "extinction"--no matter how well some people swear it works--will be used in this house. (I'm not knocking anyone who does this, by the way. If there's one thing I've learned it's that every baby is different, and every mother is different, and not one is better than the other. But seriously, couldn't some pr-brained person find a better way to market the method than "extinction?")

We took the Nap Nanny away on Monday. Cold turkey. Comfy footed sleepers, beloved Sleep Sheep white noise maker, cuddling, lavender massage, vigorous bedtime guitar playing, lights out.

Jason and I approached it like preparing for battle. In shifts. One of us downstairs, one of us upstairs in bed, so that at least one of us was getting a chunk of sleep.

On Monday we put her to bed at 7:30. We took turns going in her room and comforting her at ten minute intervals, only picking her up when the crying turned into screams. We did this until about midnight (and, yes, she cried off and on for that long). Then I went to sleep, and Jason stood guard until three. When the alarm went off they were both asleep. I woke Jason up so he could go get in bed, and he told me she had never fallen asleep. He fed her, comforted her at least every ten minutes, picked her up, soothed her, sang to her, loved her.

She stayed asleep until five in the morning, and after a quick bottle slept for another twenty minutes.

Last night was a slight improvement. After about thirty minutes of comforted crying (going in the room every ten minutes), she slept until one. Then all it took was a few pats on the stomach and she slept again until four, then a quick fuss and up for the day at five.

We put her to bed fifteen minutes ago and she hasn't fallen asleep yet. I'm not sure if this post makes any sense at all, because my whole body is wrapped up in the sound of her crying over the monitor. I've already interrupted writing this twice to go upstairs and calm her down. And I haven't slept more than five hours since the Nap Nanny--the evil, evil, evil Nap Nanny--was recalled Monday morning.

Adelyn sleeps so much better on her stomach. I've been letting her do this for naps, when she's monitored, because she falls asleep with ease and wakes up happy. But I'm too scared to do it at night, when Jason and I are snoring and my maternal alarm is momentarily turned off. I even called Adelyn's doctor today to ask for her opinion, and she agreed: no nighttime sleeping on the stomach until she rolls into that position herself.

For now, I think I'll take a big swig out of my glass of wine. And maybe give The No Cry Sleep Solution another read, while I sit in a bubble bath and take a few more swigs.

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Nap Nanny Recalled; Adelyn Belle Forced to Sleep on Back Like a Big Girl.

Woke up to an e-mail from my mom alerting me to this, with a corresponding message of "omg."

Nap Nannies have been recalled, due to the tragic death of one infant and several other nearly-fatal incidents that have gone unnoticed.

Omg is right. Stuff like this makes you feel horrible, mostly for those innocent, surely heartbroken families but also because I know I've justified my concerns about the Nap Nanny for the sake of our sleep. I hate listening to Addy cry when I try to put her to bed without it. But a few hours of crying is far better than a lifetime of loss. (I will tell myself this, over and over, maybe I'll get it tattooed on my arm, when I'm trying to comfort her in the middle of the night.)

As soon as Adelyn wakes up from her nap (she already wasn't in the Nap Nanny, thank god) I'm going to take it out of her room and put it in the attic, far away from where I might look at it and think "maaaaybe one more night" after the crying starts to get to me. It's done. Finished. Finito. It will be stored far, far away until Adelyn can use it to prop herself and watch TV or read or listen to her baby iPod.

Now, if the jumperoo gets recalled--then this little family will be in big trouble.

(And by the way--after reading some of the comments on the original article, let me just say that my doctor suggested the Nap Nanny. And she's a wonderful doctor.)

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An Ode to the Nap Nanny (which will be used, it seems, until Adelyn can vote.)

A lot of things have happened since I've been back. Nothing big or life-altering. But all things that I'm sure will become a part of my parenting narrative, the early days, when each laugh is celebrated and each accident obsessed over.

On Friday I gave sleep training our first real try. We've been pretty lucky, and although I've googled "magical tricks to make my infant sleep through the night" more times than I can count, we never really had to do anything. We've had rough nights--maybe, like, a dozen or so--but for the most part she sleeps all the way through, from 7 p.m. until 6 a.m.-ish, often waking around 3 or 4 for a quick bottle but sometimes sleeping twelve hours without a peep.

While I was gone, she slept straight through the night every single time (why does it always happen that way, when you're not there?) except for the last night. Thursday. Jason woke up to screaming around 2 a.m. and when he went in to get soothe her Adelyn had positioned herself nearly out of the Nap Nanny. Her legs are so strong I'm surprised she's not running marathons already--she'd found her way completely out of the restraints and was kicking wildly to free herself from the Nap Nanny altogether.

My first night back I put my foot down and said no more Nap Nanny. We were done. I was so completely resolved with my decision and so determined to not give up until Adelyn was sleeping like a big girl every night without fail. And like magic she fell asleep around 8 flat on her back. And then woke up at 12. And one. Two. Three. Every time I would go in and pick her up, soothe her, feed her, comfort her, rock her, try again, repeat. And every time it would result in more screaming.

I wish I had a story about my expert solution or the trick that finally worked. I don't. Instead, I gave in around four a.m. and put her back in the Nap Nanny. And she slept until nine, and straight through the next night, and the next, and the next. Lesson learned. I have now adjusted the Nap Nanny's straps and have decided that Addy will be sleeping in it until she goes off to college. Then--and only then--will I put my foot down again and say no more Nap Nanny.

Since I've been back I've also finished my first day of actually working at home with a baby. I've done a lot of projects here and there since Adelyn was born, but this was the first day where I've had actual hours to accumulate and tasks that I'm getting paid to complete within a reasonable timeframe.

I've come to realize this from my first day: I don't know what I would do without that Jumperoo. Seriously. If Adelyn isn't hungry or tired there is nothing in this world that she loves more than jumping (especially for an audience, so I'm always sure to turn my computer toward her while I'm working).

And, oh, that Jumperoo has seen some stuff the past few days. On Saturday, my first full day back, after giving Adelyn two ounces of prune juice because she hadn't, you know, relieved herself in three days, I put her in the Jumperoo so I could, you know, relieve myself. (You already know where this is going.) Two minutes later, I hear her screaming in the other room, and I jump up from what I'm doing and run to find out what catastrophe has ensued. The first thing I notice is some dark green, horrid something all over my baby's feet. (At this point she's stopped crying and is just half-bouncing pitifully). I look closer and see a pile--no, a mound--on the floor beneath her. And all over her, and all over the Jumperoo, and once I pick her up it's all over me, as well. The only thing I can do is jump in the shower, baby in hand, and shout to Jason when I hear him come through the front door to "watch out for the Jumperoo!" (His response upon seeing it, which I heard despite being upstairs, in the shower with a crying baby: "Dear God!")

All of this is simply to say that I'm so happy to be home. I was gone for six days total. It felt like forever. And I won't be going anywhere for any length of time without my baby in tow for a long, long while. (Being a parent is sort of co-dependent like that. It goes both ways.)

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The Sleep Riddle.

Which came first--the chicken or the egg? The Nap Nanny or the baby who refuses to sleep laying flat? The swing or a baby who must be rocked to sleep?

Jason and I are gradually transitioning Adelyn out of her swing for naps and out of her Nap Nanny at bedtime. The goal is for Adelyn to be able to continue her normal day anywhere we go--in a hotel, at a babysitter's, at her grandparents'. To be able to fall asleep on her own, on a bed, in a pack n' play, on a blanket on the floor. Because the way it is right now--at least in our house, her grandparents have had more luck getting her to nap without the swing--Adelyn has a very particular way she likes to fall asleep. And it includes vigorous rocking during the day, and a bottle at night (and throughout the night, whenever she wakes up).

When I look back on our first days as parents I realize just how good those marketers are at their jobs. You know how the older generation is always marveling at how many things you need to have a baby these days? Mechanical aquariums in cribs, swings so big they look like a piece of furniture, computer devices that track the amount of times your baby wakes during the night and how long they cry each time. We only need these things because we buy these things. And trust me, I'm not making some grand proclamations of freeing myself from the baby-mania consumerism. I am a victim and I will continue to be a victim. Because it makes me happy to buy things that will make our lives with Addy easier or that look cute in her room.

If we'd never put her in the swing she never would have grown accustomed to it. If we'd never put her in the Nap Nanny because she fussed whenever she was flat on her back (I think she did have reflux in the beginning, but not anymore), she'd be a pro at sleeping on her back.

But now Addy's life is a riddle of gadgets that she both depends on and loves. She falls asleep instantly in her swing--because she knows it means nap time. She falls asleep easily at night while we feed her the last bottle--because she knows eating in her Nap Nanny means it's time to go to sleep. And when she wakes up throughout the night, as all babies do, she cries out for another bottle--because that's how she knows to fall asleep.

After five months Jason and I are beginning to work our way out of these dependencies. The first step was to put Adelyn's swing in her nursery so that she's not stirred when someone knocks on the door or Louie barks (why it took me five months to figure that one out, I'm not sure). This morning I successfully got Adelyn to fall asleep in her Nap Nanny for her first nap of the day, and she did it without a bottle and only a few minutes of fussing. It's been thirty minutes and there hasn't been a peep over the monitor.

Next, we'll retire the Nap Nanny to the attic, to be used as a lounger for her as a toddler or on our next child, or to give to a friend who's baby doesn't like sleeping on his or her back (thereby passing on the vicious cycle to someone else).

This weekend Addy stayed with her Janu and Pops and I asked them if they'd mind trying to get her to fall asleep flat on her back. I've seen them do this before, and they have a knack for it that I don't. The next morning we got the report--she slept soundly like that until one in the morning, then woke up and wanted to do nothing but play and stare at the full moon (of course, her Janu obliged. How could you not? It's nearly impossible to leave Addy to sleep when she's lying in her crib, arms and legs kicking wildly, squealing and giggling for you to pick her up). After that they put her in the Nap Nanny, because this is a guaranteed way to get her to sleep.

It all sounds so complicated and I realize that, at the heart of it, it's really not. Babies will sleep, eventually, when they need to. On your shoulder, on your bed, in your lap, in a swing, or flat on their back in a crib--the "proper" way. We--or, more so, me--make it even more complicated.

And now it's up to me to find our way out of the obstacle course that is falling asleep.

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The Oft-Talked About Time When the Crying Subsides.

Don't miss the CafePress onesie and T-shirt giveaway! Still six days left to enter! (Comments are being weird, yet again. If you entered and your post isn't showing up, give it time. There are a ton more entries than Blogger is showing, and it's running on like a 24 hour delay or something.)

I'm not sure if Adelyn actually had colic, if I even believe in it, if she was just going through a phase or had something irking her we couldn't see, but I do know that it has passed. When your baby is crying for no reason and you have no idea what to do, you of course turn to other women who have been there, either in your life or online. I can't tell you how many times I read about that magical day when suddenly all the fussiness stopped--it seems to be a common denominator for all new mothers trying to figure out this new creature that's taken over their lives. Usually at three months, four, five, six. Over and over again I heard it that, suddenly, one day it would just be better. Not that it was bad before, but it felt, sometimes, like a constant Rubik's cube. The cutest and slobberiest Rubik's cube there ever was. But still a mystery.

I can't pinpoint exactly what day it happened. Right before we left for our honeymoon things were starting to fall into place in our life with Addy. And while we were gone Jason's parents kept saying how perfect she'd been, how they'd been having the most amazing time with her. And then my parents, too, when they watched her the last two days. My mom told me it felt different, now, taking care of this baby. Because crying had been replaced with smiling, giggling. Now you can hold onto her waist and she sits up on her own--and nothing makes her happier--and she burps all by herself. She can play in that jumper for thirty minutes if you let her, and she never stops squealing.

The only part, I guess, that hadn't improved was her sleeping at night. For almost three months Adelyn slept through the night like clockwork. I stopped even anticipating a possible middle of the night crying fit and just slept. And when I woke up, Adelyn woke up. Right before the wedding she started waking up at least once a night (which is totally normal, I know), sometimes two times, sometimes three. We went from beginning the day at seven to a five a.m. wake up call--and after that five a.m. feeding there was nothing, not even the best of our rocking, that could get that girl back to sleep.

On Monday night the monitor went off at two a.m. as usual. My eyes shot open and I lay there, listening, working up the momentum to stand, walk downstairs and make a bottle. But she wasn't crying yet, just chattering to herself. This is the usual routine--she wakes up, chatters and babbles for about twenty minutes, and then when no one has come to be her captive audience she starts crying. On Tuesday, though, the crying never came, and I stayed awake for an hour just listening to her talking away happily. Finally she fell back asleep and slept until seven.

Yesterday her great grandparents came over and watched her for a few hours while I went to meetings for my new job, and she, again, was perfect. (My dad watched her by himself for the first time Tuesday while I went to a meeting. Addy was a little fussy but when I came home she was asleep in her bouncer and my dad was singing to her. He didn't hear me come in so I got to witness this in its full adorableness.) And this has been my main source of worry--when I start this new job officially in a few weeks, Adelyn will be with a babysitter for two, sometimes three, days of the week. When we're at home I will still be working, whenever I can fit it in and often (I'm guessing) after she's fallen asleep. In order to work a full-time job partially at home I need to have some semblance of a predictable schedule. And I need some semblance of a decent night's sleep.

And last night was even better. She woke up to chat around three, but this time for only about ten minutes. And then she slept until seven thirty.

I think this all fully hit me on Tuesday, when Jason came home for lunch unexpectedly. When the door swung open I was laying on the floor of our living room with Addy sitting on my stomach, giggling and looking down on me. Sometimes it takes being caught in the act of your day-to-day life to make you really stop and think about it. Every now and then Jason will stop by for lunch and if I'm home he'll help me out while he can, grabbing me a bottle, entertaining Addy while I check my e-mail. This time it hit me that Addy hadn't cried once the entire day.

"It's getting so much easier, isn't it?" Jason asked the second he saw us. It was then I realized that yes, it has. We've finally reached that point I've been reading about for months. It's easier. More predictable. There's more smiling than there is crying, more new discoveries than there are defeats. It's not easy, no. But it's easier.

Four and a half months: for us, the time came then.

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Four Month Sleep Regression

It's been a few days since I've written, and I wish I had an exciting excuse as to why.

Really, it's just that I am so tired.

I've never been much of a sleeper. I don't sleep in; I secretly (or not so secretly, I guess) don't understand the appeal of snoozing the day away. At sleepovers growing up I was always the first one awake, laying there, bored, antsy, staring at the ceiling, waiting for my friends to get up.

Jason, on the other hand, needs his sleep. He'll sleep until late into the afternoon if he can. But if I have absolutely nothing on the agenda, even pre-Adelyn, I can't turn my mind off once it snaps awake at seven.

I don't think I realized just how crucial that sleep is, though. Until it's taken away from me. During the beginning of our parenting life I don't think I was sleeping more than thirty minutes at a time, but I was so wrapped up in the newness of everything I didn't let it get to me. I hardly remember it now. It's just a blur of shuuusssshhhing, rocking, swaddling and breast-feeding all hours of the night.

But then, like magic, Adelyn started sleeping with the same ease as her dad. The amazing pattern started when she was around one and a half months old. She'd go to bed at 7:30 or 8 and sleep solidly until 6:30, sometimes 7:30, a few times even until 8. And that lasted until, oh, last weekend.

Now, it's taking an hour or more to get her to fall asleep. The minute Jason and I shut her door she starts crying again, and I go immediately back in and try to comfort her. When that doesn't work I pick her up, and she immediately belches like a frat boy who overdosed on foamy keg beer. I don't know where this sudden, intense gas is coming from. Nothing else in her life has changed.

After several rounds of that, she'll finally pass out for good. And then she'll sleep until three a.m., sometimes four, usually five. It's gone from 8-7 to 10-3.

For the record, I'm not going to let her cry it out. I've let her cry--more like fuss--for a few minutes before, and it always leads to a choking, gag, GET-ME-THE-HELL-OUT-OF-HERE-sort of melt-down. For her and for me. And I don't understand how letting them cry it out will ever solve whatever's ailing them. It seems to me that it would just teach them that no one, not mommy or daddy, is coming to get them. And that thought breaks my still-hormonal heart.

And the thing is, since her nighttime sleep has gone AWOL, her daytime pattern has become infinitely better. There's very little crying during the day now. Just a lot of babbling and giggling and napping.

Jason is in Memphis for his bachelor party this weekend, so I'm going it alone. And I'm tired. It's six in the morning and Adelyn is finally back asleep (in her swing), and I'm sitting in the recliner, tired and defeated. There's no point in catching a few more zzzz's now.

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The Tongue-out, Toothless, Best Thing Ever.

I try almost daily to catch a picture or video of Adelyn with her trademark, toothless, tongue-out grin. And it's almost impossible. She smiles the most when she's looking right at you, and the sight of your smile sends her into a squealing-tizzy that makes me forget about the fact I've already changed pajamas three times because she threw up on them.

Usually, when you break out the camera, she turns into this:

She just stares, fixates on the lens. She doesn't smile, or move. She's just mesmerized. Which is adorable, but slightly inconvenient for documenting your baby's milestones.

Maybe she's smiling so much this morning because she finally got back to her normal sleep schedule. Saturday night she stayed with my parents, and luckily for them I think they got to witness her in the peak of a growth spurt. She cried, and cried (they took her for two walks, the cure-all for her fussiness), and she woke up at four a.m. Sunday night, back at home, she did the same thing. Then Monday night, she was up at one a.m., then again at five, then again every ten minutes for the rest of the day.

I was beyond relieved when I woke up to her babbling over the monitor this morning and saw that it was six a.m., her usual wake-up time. For a minute there I was convinced her sleeping through the night was just a fluke, or that maybe I'd imagined it in an exhausted-stupor.

I love that smile. I'm not sure winning the lottery could give a mom the same thrill as feeling like your baby's happy.

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Sleeping Through the Night.

Last night was the first night in weeks that Adelyn woke up before six a.m. We've all become accustomed to our little bedtime and morning routine, so much so that when it's thrown for a loop my body definitely notices. (Waking up at three a.m. felt almost impossible, even though I've done it more times than I can count the past three and a half months--well, really eleven if you count the non-stop nocturnal bathroom trips during pregnancy.)

At three a.m. on the dot I heard her on the monitor. But it wasn't the usual crying. All I heard was "Ehh." And then nothing. I tried to close my eyes again. Two minutes later, "Ehhhh. Eh."

So begrudgingly I dragged myself out of bed and into her nursery, where she was laying wide-awake. She took one look at me standing over her crib and the biggest smile I've seen yet spread across her face. I was tired, so so tired, but you can't resist that smile. I smiled too, broken sleep aside.

But the episode made me realize just how lucky we are that Adelyn is sleeping so well at night. I sort of had an inkling from the beginning that we'd be blessed with a baby who liked to sleep. And I've read that the patterns they show in the beginning, although they can vary from week to week, stay pretty consistent throughout childhood. And even with that fact under my belt I'm almost scared to write about how well she sleeps because then the baby gods will come down and screw it all up.

I don't know if what Jason and I do has anything to do with Adelyn's nighttime routine or if it's completely random. I do know, however, that I'm not about to go messing with what works.

Around eight every night, the ritual starts. Every other night she gets a bath. After that, I give her a pseudo-baby massage (I say pseudo because I have no idea what I'm doing, I just slather on some Johnson & Johnson Nighttime Lavender Lotion and say job-well-done). We then change her into a comfy onesie and get ready to feed her the last bottle of the night, usually about 4 ounces. A lot of the time we sing to her during this last feeding, usually we just talk. In the beginning I read to her every night and I vow to do this more, starting tonight, in fact. Once she's almost finished, we lay her down in the crib on her Nap Nanny. Our doctor recommended this ridiculously-expensive product after I told her Adelyn liked to sleep propped up. My mom graciously got it for us otherwise I never could have justified spending so much on a contoured foam sleep thing, but Adelyn loves it. And, as it turns out, the thing is huge and she'll be able to use it for a long time to come.

(We don't strap her in because I'm evil and because I have no idea where she's gonna go all swaddled up inside of there.)

Then we turn on her noise machine. We have the Cloud B Sleep Sheep and love it--it clips right on to her crib. At first we used the heartbeat sound, but that started to sound sort of creepy to me night after night, so now we've switched to the sounds of the ocean.

We lay her on top of her swaddling blanket, already in the crib on top of the Nap Nanny, because she used to hate the act of being swaddled and this minimizes the disruption. We started out with the Miracle Blanket. That thing started to become more of a hassle than it was worth, though. The whole process of getting her in it took too long and upset her too much. And once we switched to the Halo Sleep Sack with swaddle, she started sleeping longer than ever. It's so much easier to get her in, it's so, so much softer, and I feel like it keeps her a little bit more cozy. Again, I have no idea if her improved sleep is by chance or because it's a great product, but I'm not gonna second guess it.

Finally, we feed her the rest of the bottle. Adelyn hates pacifiers and looks at me like a crazy person when I try to give her one. But she usually polishes off another half an ounce in her crib, and then once her eyes are good and heavy Jason and I leave the room and shut the door.

Because Adelyn is going to bed earlier (between eight and nine), Jason and I get a few hours of alone time to, you know, watch and discuss Lost without screeching in the background.

I've said it before and I'll say it again--sleeping through the night is the newborn-parenting holy grail. That first time you get it, when suddenly your eyes shoot open and you realize you've been sleeping for hours uninterrupted, once you get over the initial paralyzing fear that your baby has not woken up, it's like winning the lottery.

A while ago some woman on Baby Center went on a rant about how she annoyed she is with all this "sleeping through the night" talk.

"Why is everyone so obsessed with their babies sleeping all night?" she asked us. "Didn't you know you were signing up for no sleep when you got pregnant?" And I say to her, and anyone else thinking something similar, we are obsessed with it because we are human and like to sleep.

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Day-time Drama.

I wasn't fooling myself into thinking I would wake up and suddenly this would all be easy, but I thought that, by now, I'd be getting the hang of it. Everyone tells you that you'll learn to recognize your baby's cries like her own little language, that parenting will become second nature, that you'll fall into a routine. Everyone also says that the unexplained fussiness will start to become less and less, that your baby will become more predictable.

Well, no, no, no, no and no. On all accounts.

I feel like I'm actually getting worse at anticipating Adelyn's needs. She just seems restless the past few days. She's hardly content for more than ten minutes at a time. Out of nowhere she's become one of those babies that refuses to be put down. (At first, I was struck by how independent she was--she was just fine falling asleep on her own and staring at her own fingers.) Now, the second--literally, the second--our hands leave her body she's screaming.

Jason and I have gotten better at coping. One of our favorite ways to deal is to make up songs. A lot of the time Adelyn will quiet down if you sing LOUDLY right in her face (sounds cruel--but I swear she loves it). We've created our own rendition of "'O Holy Night," that goes a little something like, "'O Addy Belle, your cries are driving us craaa-aazy." Jason has about a thousand little ditties he's made up to comfort her.

We've also discovered that Adelyn loves watching her dad dance. Last night, after twenty minutes of non-stop crying, we sat her down on the couch and Jason just started maniacally dancing. It was sort of out of desperation and sort of for our own exhausted amusement. And then, just like that, she was smiling. He danced until he was out of breath. And then we gave in and picked her back up.

Just this morning--she ate, she burped. We had about twenty minutes of play-time where she was all smiles and coos, and then, poof, happiness gone. Crying ensued. Eventually I walked outside with her pressed against my chest, and suddenly she was happy again. So I brought her bouncer out to our back deck, and for now she's content, staring at me. If she likes it outside, then here we will stay. All. Day. Long.

I'm not complaining, really I'm not. We are so lucky. Not only is Adelyn perfectly healthy and wonderful, but she sleeps through the night pretty much every night. I'm always surprised when I wake up at 7 a.m. after eight hours of interrupted sleep. And I always take a minute to thank the baby Gods for giving me one who likes to sleep in her crib, alone, for hours at a time.

The better she's been sleeping at night, though, the harder she's been to deal with during the day. I've been doing a lot of freelance work and I'm up for a wonderful job that would allow me to work from home most of the time (more on that later), but that's become increasingly difficult with a baby that won't nap, won't be set down, and won't be happy. I need to find some way to get her on a schedule during the day. I'm not asking for the schedule to be perfect, but it needs to be something. Anything.

I know it'll pass. Right? Someone tell me it'll pass. Please?

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Forgiveness and Stuff.

Adelyn and I made it through our first fight, and we're now getting along perfectly. I forgave her for her non-stop screeching the night before, the screeching that had me pulling out my hair and pleading, and she forgave me for not being able to figure out what was wrong.

Jason and I had some trouble getting her to sleep last night, too. We started the bedtime ritual at nine, and at midnight we were taking turns trying to solve the puzzle and stop the cries. Once she fell asleep, though, she slept for six and a half hours.

I still can't figure it out. There's no rhyme or reason to her night time ritual yet; the same thing that works one night infuriates her the next.

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Night Terror.

I think I bragged a little too much about our incredible sleeping baby. Adelyn spent the last week sleeping in consistent six, sometimes seven and a half hour stretches, and I let this fact be known. To everyone. People who asked and people who could care less.

Sleeping through the night is like the newborn holy grail. There are those women, the ones on BabyCenter or whatever forum, who just casually say, "Oh, she's just such a good sleeper. It just happened naturally." And when you've been up since three in the morning and have formula powder all over your pajama pants--the same ones you've been wearing for three days straight--or two huge wet spots on your shirt where your milk is leaking and you forgot to put in new breast pads, you want to take those women by the shoulders and shake them until that smug grin or emoticon wipes off their faces. Maybe this is just the sleep deprivation talking. But that's what I want to do to myself, two days ago, back when I thought I just might've figured the nighttime riddle out early.

We put her in her nursery for the first time on Saturday. I didn't think I'd be ready to put her in her own room this soon, but I realized I was barely sleeping, even when I was, since I could hear every one of her little grunts and snores. And her nursery is just steps away from our bedroom.

The first night we had her home, and I was in the depths of a sleep deprivation I hope I'll never find myself in again, we laid her in the Pack 'N Play and nervously tried to shut our eyes. I really couldn't, though. I tried to sleep on the side facing away from her, because otherwise I would have just stared at this strange, unpredictable creature I'd created snoring next to me. So, instead, I asked Jason every ten minutes if she was okay. Rather than turning over and looking for myself. If I looked, I'd want to stand up, go over to her, put my finger under her nose to make sure she was really breathing. I tortured Jason for at least two hours, making him sit up to look. And then, finally, the sun was up and neither of us had slept.

Six weeks later I've gotten oh-so-much better at just letting go of watching over her.

The first night she slept in her crib was that magical night where she slept for seven and a half hours, and I naively thought I'd stumbled upon that parenting holy grail so many blindly grasp at for months, even years.

I don't know what I was like when I was Adelyn's age; I do know, however, that I struggled for way too long with a need to sleep with my parents. I had an insanely active imagination as a kid, one where vindictive skeletons were rattling around in my kitchen and that distant beeping noise from the leaving room was a bomb a team of Nazis had assembled. I spent years trying to sleep by myself without concocting these wild fantasies. My parents tried everything; they bribed me to sleep through the night on my own, rationalized with me, explained the unlikelihood of Nazis in Middle Tennessee. I don't even remember when it stopped. Actually, I don't know if it ever did. I've just learned to better ignore the fear and focus on sleep.

I don't want Adelyn to go through the same thing. Not that it's preventable. The only thing my parents ever did wrong was encourage me to read and imagine as much as possible. But now that I have a child of my own and I get to try to fix whatever was wrong with my own childhood in her, I want to start early.

So at six weeks, she was going to sleep in her crib like a big girl.

Last night. Oh, last night. Jason and I gave her a bath (which she loves). We sang to her. Read to her. Swaddled her. Fed her one last time. She fell asleep at 11. At 2:30, I heard her crying over the monitor. I woke up, warmed her bottle, fed her with all the lights off. She ate four ounces and then burped like a champ. And then proceeded to cry for four more hours.

Nothing was working.

It got to the point I had hoped, prayed, it would never get to. When absolutely nothing was calming her and the screeching was starting to ricochet through my brain like nails down a chalkboard. I put her back in her crib. Turned off the lights. Shut the door. I walked outside to my back porch for exactly five minutes. I hope this doesn't qualify as "crying it out"; that really wasn't my intention. I just needed a minute--or five--to quiet myself.

When I went back upstairs, she was fast asleep.

Two hours later, I heard the crying again. I had just fallen back to sleep myself. She was fed and burped, and has now been asleep for three and a half hours.

I need a nap.

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