Wild Card

All bets are off with sleep these days. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Edie slept a little less than normal, but was still pulling 6-6.5 hour sleeps before waking up for her midnight feed. But since getting back on Sunday, things have gone totally haywire. Every night seemed like she was going to bed later and sleeping for shorter periods. She went from steadily sleeping at least 7 hours straight to two nights ago sleeping only 3. She hasn't slept only 3 hours since she was about 4 weeks old! I am attributing the chaos to a number of things:

1. Ann says that sleep commonly falls apart around 3 months. It can take up to a month or two before things get back on track.

2. Chaos before progress - Edie is still trying really hard to replicate the rolling over experience she had on Monday without success. She gets SO close, but can't quite roll over again.

3. We've transitioned her into her big girl crib in her own room this week.

4. In an attempt to get her to fall asleep earlier in the night, we've started waking her consistently at 8am instead of letting her sleep in like she normally does. This is in the hopes that it will reset her clock to start earlier, hence end earlier.

So I understand that things are complicated and I've been reassured by Ann (who leads First Weeks) that if you've had a good sleeper in the past, you will have a good sleeper again. At some point. But last night? Last night was just plain weird.

Jeff went out with friends so I put Edie to sleep myself. I should have known something was up when I was able to swaddle her and put her to sleep in her crib quite easily. Lately we're lucky to get her down y 11pm, but last night I put her down at 9:30 and she didn't make a peep when I dropped her into her crib. But at 2:10am or so, I heard rustling in her crib and decided to intercept before it escalated. I swooped in, nursed her and topped her off with a bottle all without waking her up entirely. She seemed sleepy, so I laid her carefully in the crib and then watched in confusion as she writhed around, thumping her legs, grunting and kicking herself in a complete circle. Then she opened her eyes and I knew all bets were off. So I picked her back up to rock her to sleep (which I should note I haven't had to do since she was about 3 weeks old - normally she eats and conks back out). Then she started grunting like crazy and fighting the velcro swaddle. All of a sudden she lets out a grunt so loud and long I swear the neighbors must have heard it. She was pooping! In the middle of the night! This has NEVER happened. This of course meant unswaddling her, taking off her pajamas, changing her diaper... all of which left her WIDE AWAKE at what was now 3:10am. Jeff came in and took over, bouncing her back to sleep and putting her back down in her crib by 3:30.

As if this wasn't weird enough, she then woke me back up at 6am. I assumed she was just hungry again, but when I went to pick her up I found that she was SOAKED in pee. I must have done a crap job of diapering her at 3am because everything was wet. I had to strip her down while she screamed for food, nurse her in just her diaper because she wouldn't wait to be re-dressed. Exhausted, I finally just wrapped her up in a blanket wearing nothing but a diaper underneath and climbed in bed with her. She woke back up at 8am on the dot and was all smiles, looking from me to Jeff and grinning as if to say, "Hey guys, last night was so fun - what are we going to do now?!" I thought I'd be more annoyed (and I certainly thought Jeff would be), but Jeff and I just looked at each other and cracked up. Ridiculous.