Sleepy...Very Sleepy...

As most of you probably know, Sadie still isn't sleeping through the night.  When she was four weeks old she slept through the night (one time).  My first thought was, this is it!  She's sleeping through the night.  At that point it already seemed like I had been awake, forever.  If you had told me in July that in January Sadie still wouldn't be sleeping through the night, I probably would have suffered a nervous breakdown.  At three months she slept through the night (or at least slept for eight hours) for two whole weeks.  Again, I thought, this is it!  I could stay up past nine o'clock without worrying that it was going to be an Awake Night for Sadie.  If I was awake past nine I would worry that I had wasted the few hours when I actually could have slept peacefully doing something silly like checking my emails for the first time in a month or doing a load of laundry.  

I was sure that when we started solid foods she would start sleeping through the night.  After all, she was just waking up because she was hungry.  I read in What to Expect in the First Year that a baby is usually metabolically able to sleep through the night at around 11 lbs and Sadie was definitely over 11 lbs at 3 months.  In fact, she was probably over 11 lbs at 2 months (she did start at 9 lbs 4 oz).  However, we are now at 18 lbs 7 oz and she still seems to think that she needs to be fed three to four time a night.  

Before Sadie was born I read several books on breast feeding and two in particular stressed "ecological breast feeding."  There are rules for ecological breast feeding, like sleep when the baby sleeps (I do that once in a while, usually only when I'm really exhausted), don't use a pacifier (that lasted about a week) and feed on demand.  They really stress feeding the baby whenever they want to be fed, particularly at night.  This is the only "ecological" rule that we've stuck too.  That may be the reason that I'm still clinging to it.  

Or maybe the sleep deprivation has made me delusional.  I'm still clinging to the delusion that Sadie is going to start sleeping through the night, miraculously, on her own.  It may even be tonight!  

Last night is the perfect example of our sleep troubles.  I went to sleep at 10pm.  I am sick again (or still sick... there was a one day break between the flu and this cold so I'm not sure if it's something new or if it's just a continuation of the flu...).  My coughing woke Sadie up at 11:45 (she usually makes it to 12).  I got up and fed her and then went downstairs and found Paul, who had the night off.  Since he works nights I'm usually on my own on the Baby Night Shift, so he doesn't really get a great idea of what the Baby Night Shift is like these days.  He came up and made sure that I woke up at 3am when she was crying (I was worried that I'd sleep through her crying because of the cough syrup) and brought her over so that I could feed her in the bed.  She went back to sleep in her crib and slept until 6am.  

When asked later in the day how Sadie slept, our different responses embodied our different attitudes.  My attitude is shaped by serious sleep deprivation.  Paul's is shaped by the fact that he, for the most part, gets to sleep in consecutive shifts because when he's asleep the baby and I are out and about.  When asked Paul said that between midnight and six am Sadie only woke up to eat one time.  I guess that technically this is true.  When I was asked I said that between the hours of midnight and six Sadie woke up three times.  At midnight, three and six.  Oh, how I wish we had a schedule right now!

Now it's off to bed.  Maybe, just maybe, Sadie will really sleep through the night tonight!