TO SLEEP OR NOT TO SLEEP

That would be the question but lately the answer is pretty clear - not to sleep.

Lauren started sleeping through the night at around three months old. It was fabulous. Granted, she wouldn't go to sleep until 11pm or so (it was closer to 3am when she was first born so 11pm was huge progress), but then she would sleep in until 9:30 (and so would I). I loved our sleep.

After the hospital, we were warned that she would likely go backwards in her development. With her need to gain a substantial amount of weight and her fragile heart, I was up with her feeding and consoling every 45 minutes or so. That slowly moved to every hour and then every hour and a half. There were beautiful, brief windows of two consecutive hours of sleep and I reveled in those times. It was amazing that I would wake up after two hours feeling refreshed (enough to feed her again and then make it back to my bed).

For two months now I have functioned on a series of nighttime naps but I'm definitely not at my best. Lauren has slowed down with her need to eat, but she still likes to wake up every 45 minutes just to visit. I love her to bits but I don't feel that I need to see her quite that often. Since Lauren's heart is showing some improvement and she's making huge leaps in her development, we decided that it was time to let her do some self-soothing and that she can cry a little bit.

Last night she went to sleep at 7pm like normal and then fought a valiant battle against sleep from 8 to 11. Thankfully Matt and I prepared ourselves mentally for having to listen to her and for staying up late. This is a huge sacrifice for him as he still has to wake up for work this week but he knows that I just can't do this for too much longer.

Tonight we seem to have made some progress. The regular 7pm sleep time came along and then the sleep battle started at 8pm but it is now 10:07 and I can't hear a peep. I'm sure I'll hear a bit more as the night goes along (she still does eat at night) but as long as we get down to business and she doesn't expect some late night visiting I can handle that.

I know that eventually she will sleep through the night again. Until then I will work to help her learn to sleep again and secretly love every minute that I get to cuddle her and bury my face in her soft, downy hair.