Sleeping through the night: Part 2

You're in for a double-dose today, Followers. I wanted to get this story in before the weekend arrived because your favorite scribe will be off road-tripping for the duration. Mommy B and I are packing up the Griswold family truckster and heading to the Queen City of the South - Charlotte, NC. Should be an interesting 3 hour drive with two adults, an infant and a excitable dog. We're meeting up with some loyal Followers who are expecting a little bundle of joy of their own in less than a month and a half. If they've been reading my posts all along, they might be having some last-minute second thoughts about this whole parenting thing... but just like everyone else says, "It's sooo worth it."

Tom Tom, please calculate the fastest route away from Bittertown, thanks. I didn't mean for my last post to sound like I'm a bitter person who is envious of parents who have infants that sleep soundly. Because luckily for me (and Mommy B), we're now one of those lucky parents.

Exactly one week ago today, Mommy B and I decided that it was high time that we let Alli really learn how to self-sooth herself at night. She's been waking up less and less at night anyway, which has been nice. But let's face it, interrupted sleep is interrupted sleep - after once or twice it really doesn't matter how many times you're up after that. So, we decided that last weekend was going to be our cut-off. We agreed that if Alli woke herself up at night, we would let her cry it out and put herself back to sleep. All the books said that by 4 months old, your infant doesn't really need to wake up at night for anything... they are just used to it. So by not going in and picking them up, you let them cry it out just long enough to realize that they are OK and they will go back to sleep.

Truth be told, I was a little skeptical of the idea. Not because I thought it was a dumb idea, but because if my daughter is anything like her father, she's hungry all the time. But, we agreed that as difficult as it was probably going to be, we'd stick to our guns. So Mommy B put in her ear plugs and went to sleep and left me to fend for myself. The first night was a little tough... not because Alli woke up a lot, but because your natural instinct as a parent is to run to your child's aid when they cry. So I bit my lip each time I heard a whimper come from the nursery, and reminded myself that it was all for the best.

And call me a monkey's uncle - but it worked! Each night Alli woke up fewer times and cried less each time. By last night, she slept all the way through from 7:30pm until 6:30am this morning. I actually had to wake her up so I could feed her and get her off to daycare. It felt so strange when I got up this morning (at 5am with Mommy B), I think I've actually forgotten what a full night's sleep feels like.

I'm not popping the champagne just yet, I'm going to wait until it happens on a regular basis before I start celebrating. But I think sleeping for 11 hours straight could constitute "sleeping through the night", yeah? Here's hoping that this is just the first of many more sleepful nights to come. That way I can honestly tell people that Alli sleeps through the night.