5 am

"Sleeping through the night" is overrated.  As of about two weeks ago my child slept until 5 am basically every night, ate, and then slept again until 9.  It was pretty fantastic.  Then we got a few nights of 6:30, and it was glorious.  And then she turned 4 months old and got a mind of her own.

Literally the minute she turned 4 months, Evelyn started getting up at least twice a night.  We figured it was a growth spurt and would pass.  But then I noticed that when I tried to feed her, she would practically fall asleep while still sucking.  At that point I knew the growth spurt had passed, and this was something different.  We decided to get mean and start sleep training.  It sucks.

Now for the past week or so, every time Evelyn wakes up before 5:30, we let her cry it out for about ten minutes before going in to give her the pacifier.  If you have never tried to sleep train a baby, you must know that ten minutes in the middle of the night listening to a screaming infant is absolute torture.  I would do anything these days to have sleeping until 5 am back.  5 am with no interruptions would be a gift.  5 am is really through the night when you think about it.  Many people start their day at 5 am, and I would be happy to be one of them if it meant I didn't have to listen to my child scream throughout the night.  These days I'm so on edge throughout the night, that when the bird that starts chirping outside my window at dawn each morning I start twitching.

Steve and I have been wracking our brains to try to figure out what could be the problem, especially now that we've gotten the temperature under control!  We can't come up with anything other than that she has inherited her mother's poor sleep habits and that she can't sleep because she's worried.  So, we've brainstormed a list of things she may be worrying about:

1. A dried up milk source.
2. All the pacifiers in the world go missing.
3. The power goes out, leaving her without any lights to look at or TV to be fascinated by.  Also causing all the frozen milk to thaw and be ruined (Ok, that one's mine and I never thought about it until the power actually did go out this morning for a bit and I had a moment of panic.)
4. A permanently wet diaper.  
5. No more tubby to splash in.  
6. Daddy loses the ability to whistle. 

These are all major catastrophes!  I guess I can see why she's up all night.