Newborn Carly had colic.
For eight weeks. For eight weeks she screamed through the night for1.5 - 4 hour stretches. As hard as this mommy and daddy tried, she could not be comforted. Her nighttime sleep came in tiny little 1-2 hour windows. Hence, so did ours. I was lucky enough to get 12 weeks off from work, so I was on colic duty during the week.
"Sleep when the baby sleeps" - I heard it a million times. And so I did. I
slept napped all the day long. I even sacrificed showers just to catch a few z's (unless, of course, we were expecting guests - you're welcome, guests). I barely left the house. I barely functioned. My hair straightener rusted and my makeup molded, but my pajamas - those beauties were worn thin.
Now when I see new moms showing off their newborn babies mere days or just a week or two (or three or ten) after giving birth, I want to throw something at them. And if their is fixed, their makeup perfectly applied and they're actually wearing an outfit that is coordinated -
with accessories - I want to throw something at their head.
But I digress...
After eight weeks of colic, Carly suddenly, magically, miraculously slept through the night. Nine hours! Over the next three or four days she worked herself up to 12 hours. And there she stayed, solidly at 11-13 hours per night. God bless her. This was her sweet gift to us. Tie a red ribbon on it and re-gift it every holiday from now until the end of my life! It was glorious! It
still is glorious. Until...
Until those crazy one-off nights where she actually wakes up. Freddy and I hear the cries come across the monitor and it ROCKS. OUR. WORLD. We don't know who we are, where we are, what to do, what that noise is...We are completely out of it. Lucky for us our flailing arms a legs smack the other one and we're up.
Getting her back to sleep is simple enough. Hold her, lay her with us for a few minutes until she falls back asleep and then plunk her back down in her crib. Done.
But the other night we experienced something different, something a tad more pleasant. We woke around 3 am to hear our sweet girl not crying, but talking and playing. She was saying hello to Mimi (Minnie Mouse) and PeePee (Mickey Mouse) and jibber-jabbering up a storm. She was having a play date in her crib at 3 am.
Freddy: Carly's awake
Me: She's not crying. Go back to sleep
Later that morning, we were getting ready and Freddy says to me: I think we need to take her "friends" out of her bed at night.
I'm okay with stuffed animal play date. I will take it ANY DAY over 1.5 - 4 hour screaming sprees.
