Sleep, Glorious Sleep

Dare I say it?  I don't exactly believe in "jinxes", but I do know that I sometimes have a tendency of speaking too soon.  Let's hope nothing changes...

Ella has successfully slept all the way through the night.  (Or at least we think that she has).

There!  I said it!  (Please Lord, don't let me be speaking too soon!)...(and I feel bad for sharing this when other blogging friends have recently shared their struggles with sleep patterns, but this is just where we are in our lives).

This whole process of getting her to sleep through the night actually started about a month ago when we transitioned her to her crib (and by "transitioned", I simply mean "we kicked her out of the cradle in our room").  For the first couple of nights, I would nurse her when she cried in the middle of the night.  But then her middle-of-the-night cries turned into simply middle-of-the-night whimpers.  They were enough to wake me up, but they were mild enough that she was able to go back to sleep on her own.  We are leaving a night-light on in her nursery, and we initially turned a humidifier on to help with her cold and to act as white noise.  But her cold has gotten (mostly) better, and she seems to be doing fine without the noise. 

I thought she had made it all the way through the night last Thursday, but my husband had fallen asleep on the couch and admitted that he heard her whimper a bit around 3:00 am before falling back to sleep on her own.  The same thing happened Friday night.  But we *think* that she made it all the way through the night without a sound on Saturday night, and again on Sunday night (though I admit that she did wake up around 3:45 am last night/this morning...so we're not perfectly there quite yet). 

I'm thrilled that she's getting such good sleep...but I admit that I'm waking up in the middle of the night to pump.  For one, I usually wake up after about six hours feeling engorged (or even leaking).  So I pump to relieve the fullness.  But I'm also trying to keep my supply up--both internally and externally--so I feel obligated to make this sacrifice (but I admit that it sure isn't easy some nights).  Even so, 15 minutes of pumping in the dark is about the third of the time that it would take to nurse her.  It's not nearly as enjoyable, but it is more efficient. 

I know that her sleep patterns will probably change as she goes through growth spurts and teething...and later on we'll deal with potty-training and nightmares.  But for now, I'm just so proud of her for getting to the point where she can sleep for extended periods of time.

Yesterday's and today's blessings are the chance to celebrate the birthdays of two of my really good friends.  My maid-of-honor (who painted the butterflies in Ella's room and drove home with me for my shower) celebrated her birthday yesterday, and another bridesmaid (who is 39 weeks pregnant) celebrated her birthday today.  What these friends offer in friendship is so vastly different, but I can't imagine my life without either one of them.