Sleep

Lately I've been reading "Operating Instructions" by Anne Lamott - it's a journal of her son's first year of life. It has been something of a relief to read the confessions of another mom and to realize that I am far from alone in the evil thoughts I have when sleep deprived and woken up again in the middle of the night by a little squirming bundle of need. Fortunately Alexander has always been a pretty good sleeper from day one, so it didn't take me too long to get adjusted to the new baby imposed sleeping schedule. Nowadays it's just a fact of life to be woken up, although there's often a prayer of "please go back to sleep" when he first starts stirring if I just finally got him down and to sleep myself a little while ago. I have upmost sympathy for those moms who have to deal with a colicy baby or a poor sleeper on top of the normal sleep deprivation.

At any rate, as I said from day one Alexander was a pretty good sleeper. *knock wood* The medical definition of sleeping through the night is 5 hours, and he would do that fairly often from the first week. This past Sunday, however, we got real sleeping through the night - he went down after his evening feeding around 10, and slept till 6:30. I fed him, changed him, and we laid back down to cuddle on the bed, and we both slept with just a few stirrings until 10 am. The choirs of angels sang in my head. :) Monday night he managed about 7 hours in a row. Last night we were back to the normal 5 hours. Like all things baby, I expect it will continue to be two steps forward, one step back. But just having one night of solid, uninterupted sleep was such a blessing - both for letting me recharge my batteries (I was truly exhausted Sunday afternoon), and for a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel that some day he might do that on a regular basis. For now though, I'm just thankful that things are as well as they are, and try to enjoy it while it lasts. The four months sleep regression isn't that far away....