Back at our California home and we’re all getting back to our normal routines.  Most significantly, Ian is sleeping again! Like, a lot more!  Once again, my lactation consultant and friend, Kim, heeded the best advice:

“For now I will say RELAX….and you can hate me for that but truly, the worst part about the whole sleep thing is really the worry attached to it.”

Bless you, Kim. Not that I stopped worrying (Who would Mandy be without the worry? I dare not consider.), but it did give me pause from doing anything drastic to my baby who had just stopped swaddling, had a cold, flew across the country twice, and was introduced to so many new faces and places- was it not completely normal NOT to sleep very much?

A nice thing happened yesterday. Ian and I were doing our thing, and I noticed he was rubbing his eyes and getting cranky. He’d just fed (I normally nurse him before any sleep happens), and we were in his room, so I decided to put him down, sans boobie, still awake.  I sang Frère Jacques, which seems to be our sleep cue song, kissed him on the head and told him to have a good nap. Then I left the room. He was quiet, then cried for five minutes. I went back in, rubbed his back while singing our sleep song, he immediately stopped crying, though still quietly awake. I kissed him again, told him to have a nice nap, and left the room.  He slept for an hour and a half.

We did the same thing in the afternoon.

Now, I’ve been at the mom rodeo long enough to know not to get attached to this, however I will celebrate in listening to my intuition, which tells  me to be gentle with myself and with Ian, and never fails to give us something to try, and most often, it works beautifully.  I love that I didn’t have to go to a book or an expert and try to follow some set of rules that feel harsh or scary (if they feel that way to me, how must they feel for Ian?).

So here I am, baby boy sleeping again, and I’m just waiting to worry about something else.

Here are some pics from a delicious get together yesterday. We sang Annie’s Song to the babes.  It was awesome. Thanks, Kristin, for the invite! Can’t wait to sing again.