Parenting Work-in-Progress

(Background: The sleep rituals involved swaddling and cuddling...and sleep would usually get fractured if I let go of her during the night. It took me a while to experiment with independent sleeping - on the same bed but not cuddled to me. I have tried this before, but there was always a difference between how much sleep she would garner with both modes - cuddled or independent.)

Thursday Night:

I swaddled her and got her ready for the night. I took her downstairs. I had my dinner while mummy held her. She was twisting and stretching and making all the motions that she does for escaping her swaddle. She was able to wrest a hand out from it. 

I finished my dinner. The girl was yawning but hadn't fallen asleep. 

I carried her upstairs and undid and re-did the swaddle.

The girl wanted to be moved around. She did not want to sleep. And I was wanting to.

'This could be a long night', that's what I thought.

I fed her a bit, and she continued to yell for being freed from the swaddle. I undid her swaddle, and hit upon an idea. I tend to use a pillow for her during daytime. (Usually during the night, the girl is sleeping snuggled with me, with her head on either of my arms)

I placed the pillow, put another safety pillow on the other side of the bed and put her down. 

She yelled once, twice, thrice, four times and then quietened down. In the almost dark room, I saw that her eyes were open and she was busy looking at something.

And she fell asleep. Asleep!

I was still not sure. So, I lay down fully expecting to be woken up in about 15 minutes.

I woke up on my own in about an hour. The baby was asleep! Independently, without being held by me...she was asleep!

I finally decided that I could sleep with some finality now.

And I did. 

Hours later, I was woken up by a sharp cry.

What? What? Ah, the girl wanted to be fed.

She was fed. She was burped. And put back on her pillow. 

She played a bit, moving her hands, clenching her fists, and she slept!

Friday Night:

(I repeat tested yesterday's experiment. Will this work? Oh please, it should!)

She was swaddled but she did not fight it off much. We had one arm snake out of the swaddle which is fine by me.

Girl was drowsy when I picked her up and made my way upstairs post-dinner. (Oy, that's a good sign.)

I got her pillow and other settings in place, and put her down.

She stayed. She slept!

We fed during the night. 

By morning we had wrested the second hand out of the swaddle too. 

Then we woke up at 6ish. And lady was hungry plus mumbling plus attempting to poop I guess. The mumbling continued and she later took another mini-feed and went to sleep 5 minutes before 7 o'clock.

We were finally up at 7:45.

But she slept!

Delighted! I am a parenting work-in-progress.