sleep is a good thing

Since getting the Happiest Baby on the Block DVD, we've had two nights and one day to try it out. Both nights she's slept better than before.

Last night we put her to sleep at 7pm. She was a bit fussy and we let her cry for less than 10 minutes, but she fell asleep herself. It was whiny crying. Very difficult for me to ignore but Ismael was good about reassuring me to stay in the kitchen and let her be until it sounded more serious. We did. Thank god.

She slept for about an hour. I fed her quickly, she immediately fell back to sleep (barely even burped once) and then didn't get up for 3.5 hours!!! Then it was feed, a quick diaper change and she's asleep like a log. Look at these photos. She was awake at 6am, like she's always been scheduled to. Ready to get fed and a bath. She was restful, smiling, a little laugh. She was calm and pleasant. She was, in a word, happy.

It lasted only about 10 minutes since after she ate she didn't burp much and I started the bath process. We had to stop after just washing her hair since there was gas. This was the retribution for not being able to burp her each time during the night. She basically would fall asleep, completely. So burping her was almost impossible. And pointless to lose any more sleep over it since we knew at some point, the burps and poop would make their ways out!

The photos are just before the bath process started and then after the gas pains stopped and I was finally able to put her onesie on. It's a size 3 months. Clearly still a little too big. She's too big for Newborn and too small for 3 months. So she's great in size 0-3 month onesies.

I wish I'd never stopped swaddling her. I thought her flailing arms to get out of swaddling meant she didn't like it. So we stopped. Little did we know that she wasn't expressing a desire but a physical reflex/movement. She needed to be swaddled the past 4 weeks and I had stopped about week 3-4. Around when she started to get 'colicky'. So maybe in my inexperience I helped create the problem. At least now I can help fix it.

I was re-reading the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" for babies weeks 7-8 (she's 8 weeks old today, in fact) and it said that infants this age shouldn't be awake for more than 2 hours at a stretch. I was like OH MY GOD, that's why she's so cranky. I'm allowing her to stay awake for too long during the day! Doh!

So much for not reading ahead to the weeks of age that she hasn't gotten to.

After her bath, she was up for a bit. She yawned. Once. At about 7.15. I started the winding down process and by 7.45am she was almost asleep, so I put her down. She fell asleep the rest of the way herself. She's been sleeping for over 30 minutes now. Woo hoo!!!

Light. Tunnel. Hope. Phew!