Sleeping

Willa has always been a pretty good sleeper, though she definitely has her moments of rage. Here is a photo of her on her way to naptime la la land today. She's such a good baby! I lay her down like this and she goes to sleep! Today she had a few unhappy throat gurgles, but that's because she didn't get a good nap at church so she was overtired. Most times she doesn't even make a peep when I lay her down.

Yes, we still swaddle her. While we're on the subject, let me just say that I LOVE the kiddopotamus swaddle wraps. Shannon gave us one (among the many other baby items she handed down) and the first time we used it we were in love. I had no idea that we would be using it this long; we even had to buy a bigger size when she outgrew the original one. It looks kind of ridiculous on her now, but it works! I think she would probably sleep find without it, and I won't be sorry to see it go, but for now it keeps her busy little hands from pulling her pacifier out. It's also become part of the nap/bedtime routine. Once she's in the swaddle she KNOWS it's naptime; sometimes she even starts smacking her lips for the pacifier because she know that that comes right after the swaddle. I'm not sure how we will get her to sleep without one, anyone know of some teenager-sized swaddle wraps we can buy?

Willa has been regularly sleeping 11+ hours each night. The last few weeks, however, she started waking up 60-90 minutes earlier than normal. It wasn't THAT much of a pain because Ryan and I were up already, but it was a little bit of a pain because she was still a little grumpy and it also threw off our "take Ryan to the bus" schedule with her. Yesterday I decided to try putting her pacifier in her mouth instead of getting her up. Guess what, she went back to sleep for another hour!! I went and laid back down and watched her through the monitor, her eyes got heavier and heavier. I was hesitant to do it because I thought she might freak out since it had been a good ten hours since she last ate, but she really is a lot happier with the extra sleep. I tried it again this morning and it worked... kind of. She fell back asleep, but then woke up again within ten-fifteen minutes. Oh well, babies just do what they do. Can anyone explain why babies just do what they do?

There's not much point to this post, except that she's such a good baby. She hasn't cried when I tried this, in fact she really doesn't cry when she wakes up. Normally, I know she is awake because I look at the video monitor and she's looking around with her eyes wide open. When I go in her room she starts kicking and smiling because she is so excited to see me, but she doesn't cry when I just put the pacifier in instead of picking her up. I think her nighttime schedule really went smoothly because we followed the Babywise steps of making her eat every three hours in the beginning, but beyond that I have no idea why she is so good. We are definitely spoiled with her, but I think that's a good thing because she's lulled us into a false sense of security into having more kids in the future. We haven't experience the demon child yet, so we don't know what to fear.