The other night Ketan and I were commenting on how far Uma's sleeping habits have come. When she was a baby, we struggled to get Uma to sleep. There was the hellish period when she was between about five and ten weeks old when she screamed inconsolably from about 1 a.m. to about 3 a.m. almost every single night. Nothing would calm her--not nursing, not rocking, not bouncing, not swaddling, not being walked around, not even the magical swing. We just had to wait out her fury. As she got older, it was still a lot of work to get her to sleep--lots of patting and rocking were required and then we had to sneak out of the room without waking her lest we have to start the whole process over again. For a long time, we didn't do much in the evenings besides put Uma to bed. Gradually less work was required, but still many nights she just did not want to go bed. Sometime in the last few months, though, something just clicked for her. Her crib has, of all things, become a happy place for her. She chatters away and sings to her stuffed animals as she falls asleep. She has even begun reminding me that she has a nap coming up or that it's almost bedtime. I knew she'd really gotten it, though, a couple nights ago. She was sleeping restlessly, and I thought it was probably because she was cold. So, Ketan and I went into her room and woke her up to put another layer on her. She opened her eyes, looked at me, and she said in an exacerbated tone, "Mommy bye-bye! Ing-uh seep!" (Umese for "Mommy go away! Uma's sleeping!")

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posted by Jessica @ 3/18/2007 09:23:00 PM