We Have A Full Night Sleeper!

Last night just after a feeding just befoer the 10:00 News, Karissa finally fell into her peaceful slumber right around 10:30. And then, there was a bit of a false alarm around 4:00am, when she was overdue for a feeding, as she began to cry a bit ... but then went right back to sleep until 5:30! It's a full night of sleep, right at about the 7-week mark!

It may not be a routine just yet, but at least we know she's capable of it. It probably helped that a couple of days ago she had a good sneeze - one of those big blowout sneezes, as gross stuff went everywhere. All kinds of oozy bright gold snot. But, it appears to have been just the clearing of pipes that she needed. She's been breathing without obstruction since and has been sleeping more soundly.

And I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Karissa - just like Kole - debunks the myth of the swaddle. She won't take it and doesn't like it. It took us a while to rule it out, thinking that surely this is what she wants, while something else is making her cry. But, desperate ideas soon became a pattern - just let her lay as she chooses to lay, on her tummy or back, and put a blanket loosely over her up to about mid-back, beneath her arms. Her normal sleeping pose on her back is with arms up in 'touchdown' position, or when not in her bassinet, she'll spread her arms out as wide as she can. Kole was the same way as a tiny infant, hating the swaddle. But where Karissa would just cry, Kole was very strong and would bust out of any blanket, no matter if the blanket was tightened with knots. The kid did not want to be restrained ... a trait that has definitely transfered over to his current state as a 2-year-old.

I won't call a baby's "need" to be swaddled a myth, but I know that it never applied in our house. The parenting books preach about "learning your baby's cry", which I think is an incredibly misleading expectation to heap on a new parent. A more appropriate sermon should be: Learn a checklist to go down to address your baby's cry. How long has it been since the last feeding? The last diaper? The obvious two. If it's neither of those, stop trying to finger through a mental index of cries from the past and what this one may match, just keep going down the checklist. Could she be too warm, which even the books acknowledge is a frequent foible, having a baby all dressed up then bundled up more with a blanket in a hot house. Etc., on down the checklist. Since Kole taught us that swaddling was a definite option that could be opted out, we added that to Karissa's checklist and - viola - without arms and legs tied down to her she calmed down and was soon asleep.