Thank You, Baby Blake

Oh man.  It's the small things in life that seem so BIG after you have a baby.  Or two.  Or just haven't slept through the night consistently in, oh, 11 WEEKS.  Not that I'm counting. 

The Martin household was all smiles this morning.  Blake slept from her 10PM feeding until about 6:30AM this morning.  SHE IS AWESOME.  Eleven weeks on the dot.  I do realize that by posting this on my blog that she will not sleep well again for probably another month or two but I don't care because now we have proof that she can do it. 

For the last several weeks she has been waking up at 4 or 4:30AM and I was giving her a bottle at that time.  She'd fall right back to sleep and then we'd start the routine again at 7AM.  I consulted our baby bible, Babywise, and in the question and answer section I noticed something.  I noticed an answer to what Dennis and I had been discussing for several weeks. 

Apparently, if a baby consistently wakes up at the same time every night, it is very likely that the baby is waking out of habit, rather than out of need.  And the solution?  Wait a few weeks or don't feed the baby when she/he wakes.  Two nights ago we decided to give it a shot.  We weren't excited about waiting a few more weeks for her to sleep all night but we also weren't excited about having her cry during the night.  The book suggested that it usually takes a baby 3 nights to break a habit.  So the end was in sight. 

She woke up one or two times and I rocked her back to sleep the first time.  I think she cried for 15 minutes around 4AM that morning and it killed me to not go in there.  I know it doesn't hurt a baby and it's perfectly natural for them to cry every single day but I. STILL. HATE. IT.  Since she stopped crying and went back to sleep until 7, we knew that she wasn't really hungry but probably was waking up out of habit.  

We went to bed last night prepared to face the same challenge.  But we didn't.  She is the most amazing little girl I've ever met.  She went to bed after her last bottle and woke up a little before 7AM.  

Sleeping through the night is an amazing thing.  It's great for Blake in a lot of ways, but it is really great for her parents.  Echo even seemed to be in a better mood this morning.

Thank you, Blake!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!