Wonderful night!

Hi everybody! I'm back!

Molly had a great night last night. Jim and I got in bed around 10 p.m. Molly got me up for nursing and diaper around 11 p.m. and again around 2 a.m. Then I didn't hear a peep from her until after 6 a.m.! We nursed and diapered again and she went right back to sleep, and she's still sleeping now.

The nights have been getting better since Thursday, when I had a teensy breakdown. Molly had me up until 3 a.m. without more than a few minutes to doze at a time. She wanted to nurse constantly and she fussed whenever I laid her down in the bassinet attached to our bed. The only thing that finally got her to sleep was lying on my chest, as I reclined on pillows in bed. That's not exactly a very restful sleeping position for me and I was nervous about her rolling.

The next night we decided to make a more deliberate attempt to have her in bed with us (thank you Anna and David for talking us through that decision and for the support!!) She slept for four hours at one stretch. It was amazing. We figured out the side-lying nursing position, too, and Saturday night I woke up from a relatively deep sleep and was a little surprised to realize I was still nursing her. Pretty cool.

The drawback is that I don't sleep as well when Molly's in the bed. And the side-lying position is not as comfortable for me as other nursing positions. Plus, we were baffled as to why Molly would sleep in a Moses basket or her "cradle rocker seat" during the day but had to be next to us to sleep at night.

It turns out she doesn't have to be next to us at night -- we just weren't putting her in the right container. Last night she was sleeping soundly in her cradle rocker, so we decided to leave her there. Jim detached the bassinet from our bed and put the chair on the floor there instead. It worked like a charm. I did bring her into our bed between the two nighttime feedings -- she seemed like she needed to be snuggled -- but for most of the night she slept in her rocker and we got some much-needed, deep sleep.

Everything else is going great. Alan, Tessa, Lex and Eve brought us lunch yesterday and met Molly for the first time. Jim DJ'd a mini-rave dance party in our living room and Lex and Eve boogied down. What fun kids! Molly's going to have a great time with these guys once she's big enough to party.