Sleeping through the night

Another great thing that Mira has started doing in the last month or so: sleeping through the night. Starting in early December, Mira would occasionally skip her mid-night milkies and sleep all the way through the night. 8:30pm to 7:30am, 11 hours uninterrupted. As the weeks went on, this became more and more frequent. She went through a period where she was waking at 6:30am instead of 7:30am, but that only lasted a couple of weeks. Now she is sleeping straight through from 8:30pm to 7:30am nearly every night. I get up with her maybe once a week. And sometimes if she does wake up, she puts herself back to sleep quickly, without me ever having to get out of bed. It is wonderful.

I waited quite a while to start telling anyone that this was happening. I was a bit superstitious that if I told anyone, then it would stop. Back a few months ago, Mira had a few nights where she slept straight through and I announced it loudly to everyone I spoke to. Then, sure enough, she stopped doing it. Sure, it could have had something to do with that trip to Dallas which messed with her sleep schedule, but I'm positive that it was actually the fact that I was running my mouth about it that caused it to stop. So anyway, this time I was determined not to fall into the same pit-trap again. So I've been telling people, just a few at a time, with periods in between to make sure I didn't upset the powers-that-be... seems to be working.

But seriously, I'm so glad to see that all my night-time parenting is finally starting to pay off. Mira sleeps easily now, at nap time and at night time. She takes one two hour nap (usually around noon, but she is somewhat flexible on the timing of the nap) and then sleeps 11 hours at night, making her total sleep 13 hours per day, which I think is right were it should be for a 1-year-old. To put her to sleep, she nurses for 20 minutes, ten minutes each side, then I break her latch and rock with her for just a second till she is just starting to nod off, then I place her in her crib and pat her back while she falls asleep. (She does have occasional rough nights, but usually it's due to something bothering her like gas or teething so I can hardly fault her for that.) And in the middle of the night she has gotten so confident that I will always come for her when she calls, that she rests peacefully without needing me, and on the rare occasions when she does need me, her calls are not panicky or upset, just merely a kind-of inquisitive noise, like "Yoo hoo, are you there mom? I would like some milkies now please."

I just hope that this isn't a phase and that she'll continue sleeping so easily. I know several children who began sleeping well at around a year old and then, for who knows what reason, after a few months they reverted back to being up multiple times a night. In an attempt to avoid that, I'm going to try to keep her sleep as routine as possible over the next few months. No overnight trips, no sleeping in strange locations, no sleep interruptions, no changes in bedtime routine, etc...