"1, 2, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock, Rock!"

As you all know from my sleep entry last week, miss Carly has given us a run for our money both during the day and in the middle of the night when it comes to sleeping.  After two very strange weeks, I think we are back into a routine...although this time I won't hold my breath.  For the past few weeks, there has been no rhyme or reason to her sleep patterns.  Sometimes she would sleep through the night, others she would wake up at unpredictable and inconsistent times.  I think we have been up nearly every hour of the night the past two weeks.  It's unfortunate and I've gone a bit crazy trying to function on so little sleep (it's not real relaxing to crawl into bed at 2am and know I could be woken up at any minute).  Fortunately, though, she seems to have settled back in to sleeping 8 hours a night.  Those blessed 10 hour nights are out the window, but I'm so grateful that she was sleeping them when I first went back to work.  I still believe it was God's way of easing me back into it.  8 hours is great, and I will be thankful for it.  She still does need 9-10 hours, so on the days that I work I just let her join me in bed.  I actually really like that time, so I'm tossing the books out the window on this one.  I think that it's precious that she will sleep in my arms and I relax knowing I don't have to keep one ear on to listen for crying.  She loves it, too, and sometimes will even give me 3 more hours after she wakes up.  It works for now and we love it so I'm sticking with it. :)

As for naps...those have been inconsistent as well.  There has been ONE day that she actually slept longer than 30 minutes for all of her naps, but we figured that wouldn't last.  With her not sleeping during the day practically at all, I did A LOT of reading on the subject (thank you so much for all the texts and emails I got with support and advice...I appreciated hearing others' thoughts on the matter of not napping).  What I essentially found out was that I was letting her get overly tired and babies who are too tired don't go to sleep well and don't stay asleep, either.  So this week we focused on getting her in her room and relaxed before she realized she was tired.  This has helped her go down easier, but hasn't helped her stay asleep longer.  We really have tried everything, from nursing her to sleep, to holding her to rocking her, bouncing her and letting her cry for a while.  She just won't sleep longer than 30 minutes. I've even hovered over her crib at the 29 minute mark waiting for her to flinch so I can soothe her back to sleep, but when her eyes pop open she looks up at me like I'm stupid.  I think she is thinking, "really...I'm clearly awake...why are you pretending I'm still sleeping?"  But at least we can get her to sleep now.  Last week she wouldn't fall asleep unless she was nursing but then would scream when I put her down, so she was taking her naps on me.  Now we are back to laying her in her crib and rubbing her back.  Brian was the one who tried that method one night and it worked!  I was shocked and thrilled!

Carly is so much happier when she sleeps well...so I think we will have to continue to work hard at helping her sleep.  As of now she is up for 2 hours then sleeps for 30 minutes from the time she wakes up in the morning until the time we put her to bed at night.  What can I say...at least she's napping!

Alright...you are probably super tired of reading about sleep patterns, so I'll share a few photos from the friends that came to play with Carly this week.  The first one is Jen, a friend who visits frequently from New York, and the second is Carly with her friend, Eden.  They really enjoyed one another and are only 2 1/2 months a part, so I think Christi & I will continue to get them together!  It's really neat how babies are so interested in each other.  They certainly know they are more similar than adults!

These girlies are certainly checking each other out!  Eden is more advanced than Carly so she would reach out and grab Carly.  I don't think Carly minded it at all!  Thanks Jen, Christi & Eden for coming over to play with us this week!