Obsessed with sleep...

Ok, I realize that most of my posts are about Mabel's sleeping habits. I admit I'm obsessed. Ever since she was a couple of months old I had been analyzing everything that is Mabel's sleep. She was a terrible sleeper...well, she came out pretty sleepy, in fact we had to wake her up to feed her since she was four weeks early she just wanted to sleep all the time. We woke her every four hours to eat, that became a habit for her around two months - after that we were lucky if we got four hours of sleep in a row. Around three and a half months I was so tired and desperate and read pretty much everything I could find online (at the wee hours of the night) that I bought a book to help. "Good Night Sleep Tight: The Sleep Lady's guide to helping your child sleep". It was a no cry method, although there were tears on both our part and Mabel's part because we were changing things, like no nursing to fall asleep etc., but she did adjust great. We started when Mabel was about four and a half to five months and I even I kept sleep logs and in about a week we had Mabel sleeping about 10 to 12 hours a night without waking. Amazing. We had our night time routine down - everything. The only trick was we had to do everything the same and everything started at 5pm, so that limited us after work, but you know it was a sacrifice we made for a good night sleep and since she was going to bed around 6:30 - 7:00 it gave us some relaxation time at night.

That was then. Since the cast it has been a bumpy road. In reality we probably slipped up a little before the cast arrived, I tried not to, but when we knew of the impending cast I would nurse Mabel a little longer at night before bedtime - sometimes she would fall asleep on me. I knew it as "wrong" since it was a habit I didn't want to get back into, but I just wanted to cuddle her that much longer knowing that she would be in a hard cast too soon. After the cast as you know everything went out the window. Throw in the teething and now we are living in a circus of no sleep. Mabel has good nights and bad. Last night was not great but could have been much worst. She calls for me like she never did before, it seems like she is almost scared. I don't know if I read more into it than there really is, but I imagine sometimes she wakes up forgetting that she can't move.

So now at the wee hours of the morning I rock Mabel soothing her back to sleep and a huge part of me loves those moments together. I love holding her, comforting her, having her fall asleep on me, but I wonder am I creating a bad habit? I don't like being tired, I don't like Mabel being tired - we both get cranky, and now that she is almost a year is she getting attached to me holding her while she sleeps? There are not answers I guess, we'll ride this one out. We'll transition into the brace next so really even if I came up with a solution now chances are it won't work for long, so right now I'm going to savor those moments with her at night, they won't last forever even though sometimes after getting up for the third time before 4am it feels like forever. I do have rules, don't get me wrong. No nursing back to sleep. No bringing Mabel to sleep in our bed - I think it is unsafe and a really bad habit. OK, well I have two rules!

I figure if worst comes to worst after the whole treatment is over, the sleep training worked once and the book - well it goes up to kids age 5.