Sleeping

The past two nights Copper has slept through the ENTIRE night! No boobie break or anything! She's been a pretty decent sleeper for quite a while now, but it's just gotten better. I hope that I'm not jinxing the situation, but is it possible that we may never have to deal with breaking her of a early morning feeding? Before she slept about 4-6 hours and then she would start stirring and I would eventually just get her up and change and feed her, but the last two nights she slept soundly for over 9 hours straight. There is one downside to this though...I start waking up around 6am because my boobs feel like they're going to explode. I then wake up about every 20-30 minutes to see if she's awake yet to eat. Wait, there's two downsides. The other is that when she does wake up and eat, I still have to pump. I spend close to an hour sitting in bed dealing with boobie milk in the morning now. Thank God I don't have to be to work early.

Up until about 1 1/2 weeks ago, Copper had never gone to bed before midnight. We tried every night to get her down early, but she would always wake up within 10-15 minutes and start fussing. Since we're new parents and hate hearing our precious little girl cry, we would always pick her up and try again 2 hours later at her next feeding. When I told her pediatrician about this, she bluntly told us to let her cry. This advice came from a few other sources over the net week also. The pediatrician wanted us to put her down at 7:30 and while that hasn't worked so far, we are now getting her down before 10 every night (with the exception of last night which was closer to midnight due to a late and long afternoon nap). I still don't like to hear her cry, but I managed to listen to a full hour of half assed fussing last night before I finally pulled her out of bed and changed and fed her again. I knew that after an hour of fussing she had most likely spit up (twice actually) and had a foot stuck up in the leg part of her PJs (both actually). Also by this time it had been about 1 1/2 hours since her last feeding. I was proud of myself for letting her fuss for so long, but the serious crying I can't handle. It's too intense for us to ignore. The nights we've tried putting her down at 7:30 or 8 has always ended in "serious crying" and we always pick her up. There is no way that I could let her wail like that with her little quivering chin for longer than it takes me to get to her bed and pick her up. Tonight we got her down at 9:15 with minimal fussing.

This is what I most look forward to at the start of my day. She is all smiles the moment I pop my head over her crib and say "good morning."