Day 8: So I left you all on tenterhooks after day 7’s schedule all went out of the window.  I just knew it was going to be a bad night when Aviana woke up at 9.30 PM, just 2.5hrs after we put her down for the night.  At first we were confused where the crying was coming from because she has never woken up this early since she was 6 weeks old!  I panicked, not knowing how to handle this, especially as I had literally just finished pumping – the boob soothing option was pretty much out of the window.  Could she really be hungry?  Well she hadn’t eaten much that day, so it was possible.  Or was this the start of the 4 month sleep regression?   For some reason I crazily decided to try and soothe her back to sleep by shushing her and putting my hand on her tummy.  Unbelievably – it worked!!  Phew!  However, knowing that she wasn’t in a deep sleep we decided not to do our usual thing of what we do just before we go to bed: pick her up out of her crib in her room and transfer her to the pack and play in our room.

We decided that we would leave her in her crib for the night for the very first time. YIKES I was nervous about doing this. Why?  Because I was afraid I wouldn’t hear her cry or the monitor would break – her bedroom is upstairs and ours is downstairs so we wouldn’t hear her cry through the walls.  Of course this is also prime time for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) , so I worry about that all the time.

Anyway…needless to say I was right.  She woke up at 2.15AM.  DOH.  Then she woke up for the day at 5AM. Double DOH.

Despite the early start, Aviana nursed to schedule, still every three hours, and napped well, with me putting her down in her crib with little to no crying. WINNER!

Day 9: Aviana woke up again at 2.30AM  for  night feed and then woke up for the day at 4.45AM. UGHHHHH.  OK so there goes the theory that a schedule with few feeds with more milk helps her to sleep through the night!  But remember we are only on step 1 of the baby sleep solution.  Today was nanny day!  I got to take a break and Aviana was on schedule with the nanny.  She even drunk 5oz of milk at bed time!  She is taking the bottle much better now.

Day 10: This time Aviana woke up at 3.15AM, a little better, but not like the few days she slept through.   The schedule went completely out of the window because I went to a baby wearing meeting in the morning and Aviana decided to fall asleep in the car in both directions.  Then I got a call from friends who needed some help with something which meant I had to leave the house, so Aviana missed her afternoon nap completely.  Today was a day that made me realise that Aviana likes a schedule because she got a little grumpy with it all, which made me a little grumpy too.

Days 8, 9 & 10 summary:  No more sleeping through the night, those two days seemed to be a one off.  But Aviana seems to be a much happier baby with a schedule and goes down for naps easily.  I think we may be able to stretch out her feeds a little more next week now that I know she can drink 5oz in one feed.