Sleep

I am super nervous to write this post. I've been putting it off because I don't want to jinx anything. It's been about 2 weeks though, so I am feeling more and more confident that we have made a HUGE turn in the sleeping area in our household.

Just abut 2 weeks ago Adalyn got a cold very much out of no where. One minute she was fine and the next her nose was running like crazy and she was super congested. At first I pinned it on teething, but quickly figured out it was more then that. What until this point she was not sleeping well. She was waking hourly at times for a "fix" and eating 2-3 times a night still. She wasn't letting Kenny put her down for bedtime or nap time. Pretty typical sleep habits Baby Girl has had her whole 10 months of life. We had grown use to the bumps and constant waking at night and lack of sleep. She napped but it was often only 45 minutes 3 times a day. It was what it was and some day we hoped it would get better. We had tried everything and nothing improved her sleeping.

When she got the cold we decided to move Shane's humidifier into her room. Having heard that it can help with congestion and colds, we figured we would give it a try. Couldn't hurt, right? And I was terrified that this cold would make her sleep even worse. Not something I was looking forward to. The first night the humidifier was in her room she slept 7 hours in a row with out a single wake up. She woke up once and ate only 2 ounces (she averaged 4-6 ounces 2-3 times a night normally). At one point that night I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep because I was worried there was something wrong with her. I was so accustom to seeing her every couple hours at night. I went in to peek on her and she was sleeping so peacefully. She then slept until morning. Kenny and I looked at each other scared to get excited about what had just happened. BUT we were NOT going to remove that humidifier from her room for nothing now.

The next week she continued on this path. Sleeping six hours in a row, not waking up for transitions or "fixes", waking up only once for a 2 ounce bottle and a diaper change, then continuing on sleeping until the morning. Another area of improvement was that she was sleeping past 5am in the morning and waking up more like 6:30-7:00am. Once again this is HUGE for her. She also started eating 8+ ounces at night before bed time. Another major change for her. Normally she would only do 4 or 6 ounces before bed if we were lucky. And all of this was happening WHILE she had a cold, and was majorly congested. We kept shaking our heads and wondering, really!?!

Her napping has also improved during this 2 week time frame. She still is taking 2-3 naps a day, but they are 1-2 hours long! Amazing. Seriously just plain unbelievable sometimes. On top of all of this sleeping improvement she is getting tooth #8 in and it hasn't seemed to mess things up yet. A couple nights ago she had a few more wake ups, but I really could tell the tooth was just bothering her. Even then her sleeping was so much better then it has even been.

Was it the magic humidifier? Did she just finally figure it out or hit the right age for her? Did the cold help in some weird way? I don't think we'll ever know what got Addie to turn the corner on her sleeping. But we'll take it, what ever it is. We do wonder why all those sleeping books we read never once mentioned trying or using a humidifier? I would have bought one of those suckers 10 months ago!!!!

We have two more steps to go: sleeping through the night completely and no more bottle in 2 months. But with this last turn of events we now have hope that it will happen....sooner then later. Ahhh....sleep, it feels so darn good to sleep more then 2 hours in a row.

On a side note: Shane has also improved his sleeping as well. He has finally figured out how to sleep in. He now wakes up between 6:30-7:30am. Not 5am like he was for many years of his life. We just want to thank the Sleep Goddess that visited our house. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!