Come to Bed

I should mention that Millie did sleep in her own crib all night last night. Not that the nights she doesn't is necessarily her fault. Quite the contrary. I start each evening with the conviction that comes with the early hour: she WILL sleep the whole night in her own crib tonight. She goes to sleep at 6:45 or so (the "or so" sometimes being 5:30 when she's had a particularly bad nap day and is left in what my mother used to call an "ugly" mood). Occasionally (okay, often) she wakes up by 9:30 or 10:00. I SHOULD go into the nursery (slash office complete with a Staples Easy button, courtesy of her Auntie Jessica) and nurse her in the dark and quiet room. Occasionally (okay, not so often) I make the right choice. Occasionally (okay, way too much) I opt to nurse her on the couch with the lights dimmed, TV on (come on-it's LOST-am I really expected to abandon my husband during that???), and her father next to me. She is enamoured with her daddy and responds accordingly to his voice by craning her neck around to grin at him, indicating her increasingly awake state. After an hour of trying to get her asleep, she finally lets go. So, I then attempt to get her from the couch, navigating all the crap I left on the floor, to the crib in the next room without waking her up. Sometimes she goes down easily, mostly she doesn't. Go figure. At that point, it often is deemed easier to bring her in our bed where we know she will sleep than to do battle with this baby with very few self-soothing skills. After all, if she's screaming in her crib, no one sleeps anyway. Right? Can I get some validation on this one? Anyone?

And sometimes she ends up there in the middle of the night. She cries. I lay in bed, convinced that she couldn't POSSIBLY be hungry again, she'll go back to sleep, which occasionally (okay, rarely) happens. So, I relent and nurse her or comfort her in the glider in her the nursery. It's dark and quiet and I inevitably fall asleep. By the time my husband realizes I have been gone for way too long, he comes in to make sure Baby Tad hasn't come to life like the evil Chucky spawn I am convinced he is and taken us out. He likes her in our bed, despite the fact it leaves him crippled, and suggested I bring her in our room. I think it makes him feel like a crunchy parent and being the anthropologist he is, he knows the our culture is one of the VERY few that don't co-sleep with our children. He also would like me to get some sleep. When mommy's tired, EVERYONE is sad, trust me.

So, in she comes, triumphant smirk on her face. She's won again. She proceeds to splay out her arms like the queen she is, leaving approximately 4 inches on either side of her for the adults in the teeny bed. My husband and I would at least wave goodnight to each other from our respective sides, but that would require use of the hands that are gripping the edge of the mattress to avoid plummeting to the floor.

But not last night. She ate at 9:30 (on the couch...) on one side, I brought her in her room and nursed her on the other side. And stayed awake. And put her in the crib. After a few minutes of fussing, she stayed there. And my husband and I went to bed without a third party present, enjoyed some "adult" time together, and fell asleep. She woke up at 1:30, I fed her and again, after a few minutes of protesting, went back to sleep until 5:00. I don't kid myself into thinking it might happen again tonight. But one can hope.