Lydia was having some "independent time" in her pack n play this morning while I caught up on Facebook and she fell asleep in there. She hasn't slept in it since her first week home from the hospital and I was planning to start trying to do some naps there to get her used to it for travel... looks like she beat me to it!

I'm so glad my baby can put herself to sleep. Sometimes she still has a little trouble, but for the most part she can fall asleep without me, without motion, and without a pacifier. I just plop her in her crib and walk out. She might fuss for just a few minutes, but usually settles herself down just fine after that.

She's still learning though... we definitely still have rough moments. Yesterday I put her down for a nap around 2:30 and she initially fell asleep pretty well. But after 10-15 minutes she woke up crying... an obviously "tired cry" not one indicating she needed anything. So I'd leave her be and she'd resettle after a minute... but then she'd wake up again after another few minutes. This went on for nearly an hour! I went in a couple of times to try to burp her and each time the poor thing was just SOOO sleepy but was having such a hard time staying down. Finally at around 3:30 I burped her and cuddled her for just a minute, then layed her down and she was able to sleep for another 30 minutes.

So yeah, we still have some naps that don't go so well, but I'm thrilled that she's learning to do this without needing any aides.

Currently I'm working towards getting a solid feeding schedule for Lydia. I'd been feeding her ever 2.5-3 hours during the day... typically starting around 7am... but I never had a good routine for it. Some days would be mostly 2.5 hour blocks, others would include more 3 hour blocks. It just made it more difficult to plan our days. Now I'm trying a solid 3 hour schedule with her first feeding at 7am and last one at 10pm. This gets her 6 good feedings during the day and 9 hours of solid sleep at night. Yesterday was the first full day on this schedule and she did really well on the 3 hour blocks. I was afraid I might have to deal with some fussing in the last half hour since she's used to sometimes eating after 2.5 hours, but she had no problems at all yesterday. She did wake up a little before 4am this morning, but rather than jump to feed her I tried the pacifier first and it worked! She took her paci and fell back to sleep by 4:15 (I had to go put it back in her mouth a couple of times before she fully fell asleep... precisely the reason I don't often let her sleep with the paci!). I'm really hoping that after a few days of this routine she'll settle in and get back to sleeping longer at night. The last time she fully slept through the night, I didn't sleep well because I kept wondering if she was okay all alone in her crib. :-P

For not even being 10 weeks old yet, and being exclusively breastfed, I'd say Lydia is a champ at sleeping! She still has rough days (and always will), but she is learning very well and all of the good days make for a very pleased mommy. :-)

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