Sleeping Through the Night, Or Most Of It

John told me that he talked to another daddy at work who said once the baby is 12 pounds, she should be able to sleep through the night. And so we looked it up in the bossy baby book (What To Expect blah blah blah), and it says, yeah, in the third month (which Lily is, corrected), they should start sleeping through the night more. Or more of it. Oh, okay, well how do you make that happen? You have to ignore the crying. What?! I can't do that. Baby cries, I pick her up, I make her happy.

Evidently by the time they're 12 pounds, they don't physically need to get you up three times a night to eat, they're just in the habit. So you're supposed to start imposing a schedule. But it's going to be hard at first. John's friend said the first night they didn't get up to feed their baby in the middle of the night, their baby cried for 45 minutes. HOLY CRAP. I can't do that, I'm sorry. I think I'd lose my mind. Not because I'd hate the crying, but because I'd feel so bad for her being that unhappy. When she cries now and she has little tears, I want to cry myself!

So we're starting out slow, trying to get her to go longer at night, like don't pick her up the moment she starts fussing. Wait, then pick her up and see if she just needs a snuggle. If you can stretch it another 30 minutes, that's still progress. Okay, I can do that, I think. Getting it down to one middle of the night feeding would be great. Then we'd get more sleep. I like that part.

The part I am having difficulty accepting is that soon we should probably get a real crib and put it in her room and let her sleep in there. By herself. Right now the bassinet is at the foot of our bed. And I like it there. Mmmm. I thought I wanted to change, but I guess I'm attached to my lil' pumpkin. As much as I am dissapointed some days that I can't put her down to go make art or do something else, I love to hold her, and sometimes sitting in the recliner for 3 hours with her in my lap sleeping is really wonderful. I stare at her face and see how her eyelashes are growing longer. I wonder if she really looks like me, I can't tell except for her cute little nose. I am proud of my button nose. Even if it's become a bigger button. But it doesn't matter who she looks like, to me she looks like herself, the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me, the cutest baby I've ever seen, the sweetest lil' pumpkin ever.