Sleeping like a baby

Sterling is in a no-napping phase, which made me decide that we need to start getting some sleep routines going to help her figure out when she's supposed to sleep. Tonight was my first real attempt. Mike gave her a bath, then I read her a story (which wasn't too popular, although she did try to eat the book briefly), then I turned the light off and turned on her new sleep music on my old iPhone. I nursed her until she was very sleepy, then tried to pop her off the boob. Nuh-uh. I let her latch back on, waited again, popped her off, nuh-uh. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat again, but this time when I popped her off I moved back away from her. She settled right down and is now napping in the bed. The goal was to get her to sleep in the cosleeper, but I think the bed is a good compromise.

It got me thinking about all the time I've spent sleeping with Sterling so far in her life.

When she was just born, I was petrified that she was going to stop breathing. I spent the first night thinking that one of us (me or Mike) should be awake with her the whole time. We ended up both falling asleep and then sleeping for like 6 hours because my nursing alarm didn't wake me up enough. She slept that night mostly on my chest, I think.

She seemed to sleep better when she was partly upright, back when she was a tiny newborn. I spent a number of nights on the couch propped up with pillows with her on my chest at her favorite angle. I did that in the bed as well. I would prop myself partly up with pillows so that her head was higher than her feet when she was asleep on my chest. I never rolled over and tipped her off.

I've always been a side-sleeper. I don't sleep well on my back normally, so I started rolling her off my chest to sleep on my arm when we would wake up to nurse the first time. She didn't seem to mind.

I slept several nights with her on my chest sleeping in the recliner. We would leave the overhead LED Christmas lights on, which makes it bright enough to see. It was really a convenient way to sleep before I learned to nurse laying on my side. All I had to do was sit the recliner up, I didn't have to mess with pillows behind me and a boppy under the baby and a pillow under my elbow to keep her in position.

Sometimes Mike wanted to sleep with her. He'd lay on the couch and lay her sideways across his chest. Early on, I was very afraid that he would roll onto her or that she would slide down and suffocate in the couch cushions. When he fell asleep with her like that, I would lay awake on the other couch and wait for her to make a noise so I could go retrieve her and give her a nurse. He never squished her and I eventually got over it.

It's amazing how fuzzy and faded these memories are already. I put it down to sleep deprivation, even though Sterling has always been a pretty good night sleeper. The newborn days just sort of blend together into a big fuzzy mishmash of baby stuff.