If this pattern continues, we'll be getting up before we go to bed

On Monday 4am turned into 2am. On Tuesday, 2am turned into 12:30am. 12:30am was also the beginning of a 3 hour screaming session.

Yes, all you mothers and fathers out there can take evil comfort in the fact that we're really getting pay-back for all those months of good sleep we've been getting.

Following up from the last post, since Daisy has become mobile in her crib it's become almost impossible to get her to stay down through the night. I had resolved to transition-out the miracle blanket on Thursday night, one arm at a time (to preserve at least some of the sleep we were getting) but, after the 2am awakening, I decided it was now or never. So, last night was the night for the first arm.

Unfortunately all of this has coincided with a little cold and so IT DID NOT GO WELL. It never rains, it pours, right?

By 12:30am, Daisy had both arms out of the blanket, had rolled off the sleep positioner, and was traversing the crib, sniffling, snuffling, and coughing, until she eventually ended up on her stomach. As regular readers of this blog know, her tummy is not her favorite position and, because she has not yet mastered the front-to-back roll, this usually results in her getting so pissed off that she wakes herself all the way up.

Determined to be merely the facilitator to enabling her to soothe herself back to sleep (vs. setting a dangerous pattern of night-time mummy-time), I went in, repositioned her on her side and left the room. I then continued this (or less invasive versions thereof), inbetween bouts of full-boar screaming, every 10 minutes for almost 3 hours. Yes, I have a cast-iron will when I want to, think of me what you will. In my defense, there were several periods during which it looked like she actually might make it back to sleep (providing me with false hope) and she actually did once, at about 2am. But then our dog barked and woke her up. Somewhere in there I did pick her up and put her in a SleepSack, which did seem to help with the rolling around. Meanwhile, Hubby couldn't hang with the cry-it-out method. He vamoosed himself downstairs under several pillows after less than an hour and before our marriage went in the same direction as our sleep.

At 3:10, I finally threw in the towel and went downstairs to make a bottle. She sucked down 4 of 6 ounces in less than a few minutes, I turned her in towards me, and she went out like a light, no binky even needed. She then stayed down until around 6:30am-7am, despite still traversing the crib continuously (I don't think there was a bit of that crib she didn't sleep in last night.)

Of course, I'm sure that the reason for the extreme change in schedules is the fact that she's sick right now. I'd like to think that, had this of been regular Daisy on a regular night, we would have had more success in a shorter period of time.

So, we soldier on and hope for a better night tonight. It's not looking promising, however, given that she's still uber-congested and not able to eat much (because she can't breathe through her nose.) Hopefully, by the time we come out the other side of this cold, she'll be so happy to breathe normally again that she'll sleep like a zombie. I said hopefully...