Glory, Hallelujah

For the past two nights, Isaac has slept more than five hours at one time. Saturday night we fell asleep together at 11:15pm and didn't wake up until 5:45am. Last night, the night before my fateful return to work, we actually went to bed at 9:30pm! We were up again an hour later, but then we went to sleep again at 11pm and woke up at 4:30am. I couldn't believe it. I said, "Thank you, thank you, little man." I certainly don't expect this to happen every night, since I know his sleeping patterns will fluctuate, but it certainly was a gift to get an extra few hours of sleep the two nights before I had to go to work.

We've started co-sleeping with Isaac, mostly out of necessity and desperation. One night last week he woke up nearly every hour, and I finally just took him out of his cradle, which is next to the bed, and laid down with him on the couch so John could sleep. Together there we slept nearly three hours. After that, I just decided to bring him to bed with me. I sleep better, he sleeps better, and I really enjoy having him so close to me. I think I'll especially enjoy our nights together now that I have to spend so much time away from him during the day. The only person who hasn't benefited from our new arrangement is John. He actually sleeps worse with Isaac in the bed because, now that he's closer, John hears him every time he makes a sound and ends up waking up multiple times throughout the night. Hopefully, though, he'll just get used to it because now that I've tasted the sweet nectar of sleep there's no way I can go back. I can't decide, though, whether Isaac should sleep between us or next to me, nearer the edge of the bed. When he's there, I'm terrified he's going to roll off the side of the bed, but when I've put him between John and me, there have been more than a couple of times I've woken up just in time to catch John's elbow before it landed on Isaac's head or had to push him nearly off his side of the bed to keep him from rolling over on our baby. Any advice from other co-sleeping parents? I read in my Dr. Sears book that you can buy a sort of railing to attach to the side of the bed to keep baby from rolling off (he advises against putting baby in between mom and dad), but I haven't looked anywhere to see if those are available here in town or if I have to find one online.

So far, the first day of work hasn't been too bad, though I fear I'm about an hour away from a major crash. I've left Katie in charge of putting this issue to bed today, so I haven't taken on too much responsibility, which is good, I think, because my brain didn't quite make it to work with me. The one difficult thing, though, is trying to pump enough milk throughout the day to keep up with what Isaac's eating. Of course I'm not pumping as much as I'd be producing if I were nursing him, but I think I'm not even getting as much as I would if I were in a more comfortable, relaxing setting. As it is, I have to pump in the bathroom, and, although I've rolled a chair in there, it's still not the ideal pumping room. And the stress of knowing I've got people waiting for me outside those bathroom doors doesn't help either. It is nice, though, to take 20 minutes a few times a day and just think about Isaac, to be able to focus some of my attention toward him, even when we're apart.