Sleep

I've noticed that the other cousins' baby blogs don't talk about sleep much. I am pretty much obsessed with sleep.  It seems like adequate sleep is the root of all family happiness, at least for our family.  Most of my friends and family know that I am a devotee of Marc Weissbluth's "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby," and it has really worked well for us.  Henry is just now transitioning out of the afternoon nap, but he still takes at least a 2-hour nap on the four days a week when he isn't in afternoon preschool.  Plus, every night he sleeps at least 11 hours, contentedly in his own bed, without waking. It is amazing to me how he can sense time even without being able to read a clock.  He'd been getting up a little too early the past couple of days-- 5:30 or so, so I asked him to please try to sleep a bit later.  This morning he got up at 6:10 and proudly said, "I slept later, Mom!" even though Michael and I were still in bed and the house was dark.  How did he know that he had made it across the crucial 6 am threshold?  Somehow he senses it. 

The reason we were still in bed at 6:10 am is that Aggie slept GREAT!  I did a happy jig this morning when I woke up on my own and saw that the clock read 6 am.  She's been waking to nurse at around 10 pm and 2:30 am the last few nights, settling into a good schedule, but today, for the first time, after the 2:30 feed she slept straight on through till 6:30 am, without waking irritably at 4:30 or 5:30 and maybe or maybe not going back to sleep.  With some experience as a parent, I can really see her growing and changing into different phases--more or less right on Weissbluth's predicted schedule.  So, whereas she used to sleep happily in the Bjorn, now she really sleeps best on her own, in a quiet room.  And she falls into a deeper sleep at the naptimes, even if she still dozes at other times.  I guess I should be enjoying each phase, but it is a lot easier to enjoy a phase when I am not massively sleep-deprived!