Why Sleep

With Ashley, we were constantly consumed with her sleep. It didn't help that everyone asks new parents, "is she sleeping through the night?". Ashley was what many would call a bad sleeper. As a newborn, she was up every two hours for the first couple of weeks (or was it months, I can't remember.) And the magical sleeping through the night did not come until she was 18 months old. Yes, you read that right. And we did everything right, she went to sleep on her own, we tried giving her water instead of milk when she woke in the middle of the night, etc. We were even part of a sleep study with John Hopkins. We were miserable and cranky and desperately needed sleep.

Now we have Audrey, the "good" sleeper. Well, at least she was. The second night in the hospital, I kept her in the room with me. She slept from about midnight until 5:00am. I was in shock. And when we brought her home, she would go to sleep around 10:00 or 11:00pm and sleep until about 4:00am consistently. Then at about 6 weeks, she was sleeping through the night.

Then teething came. Since then (the last two months) she has been waking up once in the middle of the night for a bottle. There has been the few instances that she has done more than that, but those are only once or twice a week. But Ray and I don't seem to be as cranky or tired. Maybe I shouldn't speak for Ray, but it doesn't bother me as much this time to get up with Audrey. She is so cute in the middle of the night. I go in to get her, and she looks up at me from the crib and just grins. She takes her bottle and goes right back to sleep.

The real reason I think I don't mind as much this time? I know this is the last baby I will have. I won't have to do the middle of the night feedings again once Audrey outgrows this. I am sad that this is it, but happy at the same time that these two girls are growing up into such sweet little girls.