11 Hours!

I know...I know...we are crazy lucky, and I hate to gloat, but Lily has slept a glorious eleven hours the past two nights! Another new mom asked me today what our secret is and I honestly have absolutely no idea. It's funny because my last post and the accompanying polls were part of my attempt to discover the secret to baby sleep.

As previously posted, Lily had been waking up around 5:30am for a while. I then started putting her to bed earlier (around 7:30) and she was waking up around 3am. Then, Wednesday night, I went to an Ash Wednesday service and left her with Josh. He put her to bed around 7:30 and she slept until 6:30 the next morning. It was marvelous (despite the fact that I had trouble sleeping from 4am on thanks to the fact my body was used to nursing at 3). I joked that he was in charge of putting her to bed from now on!

Then last night I put her to bed around 8:30pm. She did wake up briefly and abnormally around 9:30pm (perhaps from a bad dream or gas?) and I had to briefly soothe her back to sleep, but after that she slept and I had to wake her up after 7:15 this morning to feed her before I left for work. I actually slept until my alarm clock went off. It was fantastic.

I have no idea what is making the difference. We are feeding her cereal now at least once a day, but we have done that for more than a week. We have also been reading her stories at night, but I don't really see how that could make her sleep longer. It might most possibly have something to do with swaddling. The last two nights we have left arms out when we swaddle her, but I'm not sure about the swaddle choice since it allows her to roll around more (last night while falling asleep, she did a full 360 degree rotation in her crib) and potentially, although it hasn't happened yet, roll over. I think that could be bad since she tends to get fussy when she rolls to her stomach. Josh noted, however, that it allows her to suck her thumb (another new habit which she even tries to do when nursing) and sooth herself when she wakes up or to play rather than to fuss, which is nice.

I'm sorry I don't have some magic formula to offer other moms. Heck, I wish I knew what made it happen so I can make sure we keep doing it. But, as I'm learning is true with many baby related things, there is no rhyme or reason. Whatever the reason, I am grateful for it and pray it continues!