The Sleep Saga

Our sleeping saga began about the middle of December.  She was such a good sleeper at night; we were so spoiled.  But starting mid-December, Natalie began to wake up inexplicably.  At first, it was just for a few minutes, and she would fall back asleep on her own.  But her time awake became more and more drawn out, and more and more often.  Believe me when I say we tried many, many different things.  As I've talked about before, at the beginning of January, we attempted to let her cry it out.  This worked occasionally, but sometimes she would just get so worked up that there was no getting her to sleep on her own.  Or, if she did, she'd wake up 15 minutes later, just as upset.  

At the beginning of this week, we started to think Natalie was teething.  She woke up every three hours on Sunday night, and every two hours on Monday.  This was so unlike her!  We bought some baby Orajel, and then at the suggestion of a friend, bought some gas medicine for her.  On a whim one night, while she was whimpering, we tried a pacifier.  And for some reason, she took it!  And then we added some consistent white noise (fan) in her room.  And then we gave her some gas medicine.  This child has transformed in to sleeper extraordinaire!  We have tried all of the above, separately, before, with no effect.  But now, for some reason, it is EXACTLY what she needs.  We haven't used the baby Orajel at all, so I'm not sure if she is teething or not. (She is drooling a lot and sticking everything in her mouth, but no signs of teeth, that I can feel.)    

Not only is she back to sleeping through the night, but she is taking legit naps during the day.  Yay!!!  An hour in the morning, and 2-3 hours in the afternoon.  And she's happier because of this!  She has never been a good or easy napper, unless she was sleeping on us, and now I finally am feeling a little bit of freedom.  I'm really hoping it sticks.  

The other wonderful thing is that we don't have to fight through tears (hers or mine :) to get her to sleep.  I change her, swaddle her, cuddle her on the rocking chair, read her a story while she sucks on her pacifier, and she just grins at me and peacefully drifts off.  She doesn't even notice when I put her in the crib, which is an enormous change from all of her previous history.  We haven't given her the pacifier at any other time of day, so I think it will be just a naptime/bedtime thing.  She pops it out after she's been asleep for 10 minutes, and she's just fine without it.  But for some reason, it lulls her to sleep.  Ahh...many of my anxieties have been allayed by this. :)

I took these videos tonight.  Natalie was so funny; rolling over again and again.  She rolled to her tummy, then to her back, then to her tummy again, which is how she ended up on the carpet.  She looks  like she really wants to get going!  I may have gone overboard, posting all these videos, but you want to see this...right? :)  

And here I actually catch her rolling over.  She usually gets her hands out from under her, but not this time.