5 1/2 hours of sleep!

I sleep with baby Eskarina and it works for us splendidly. She is cuddly and nurses frequently but not obnoxiously. She does unattach from her beloved nursie and assumes the adorable on the back with hands way up over her head position for lots of the night. When she starts to root and snuffle around, I help her find her beloved and we both go back to sleep. Neither her nor I barely open our eyes. She needs much less "help" than when she was a newborn, of course, and I hope to bedshare with her for a long time to come. We slept with Greta until she was 14 months old. The boys were younger, about 9 months. The reason we kicked them out so to speak ; ) is because they would wake up and instead of a sweet little search for the breast, they would bolt upright and start the party time! Crawling on my damn head, grinding their foot into my neck, trying to pull my eyelids and smack smack smacking me Ma-Ma-Ma-Ba-Ba-Ba....uh-uh. Any attempts to reattch them to the breast would get me a strong bite and then they would jam their feet into my thighs for use as a launching pad for their olympic backdive routine. I was lucky if they gave me the courtesy of letting go of my nipple before backflipping.

But Eska is cuddly and so far so good. Except for the past couple of weeks. She is getting all kinds of teeth and taking too many dozes in the mid evenings and so she has been bright eyed and perky around midnight. When I try to get her to nurse, she laughs or squeezes or pinches or just won't. Well, last night I had had enough. My upper back has had a badly pinched nerve in it for about 4 days (I know, my physical health is still so crappy but I just don't talk about it that much anymore/lately) and I couldn't do what it would have taken to twist and chase her in the bed so Daddy took her in the front room to hang out for a little while. Steve knows that men are not inherently as tuned in to that light sleep that women are when it comes to babies and so he just does not co-sleep. I think once when Greta was a baby he fell asleep with her watching tv and he woke up SO wigged out that he told me he just cannot and will not ever do that again. So I was wondering what exactly he had in mind but I was too tired and pinched to care. I figured he would watch some tv and bring her back soon.

I woke up at 5:30 am! Ahhh! What?! I went out in the living room and he had her buckled int o her baby carseat with a little blanket in front of the television. He was on the couch. she slept for 5 1/2 hours like that?!?! What a genius. How strange. Who cares?

I feel so refreshed, I didn't even realize how tired I was. I feel like a gallon of confusion-fluid has been drained from my brain and my face.

I don't know if this will work again and I don't want to start a habit. I do NOT want my period to return, and for me, the night nursing is the one thing that keeps that nightmare at bay. My first period after Casey was sleeping long stretches at night had me in the hospital for the day for hemorrhage. Plus, with my emotional physical self being what they are, I am sure it will be no surprise to learn that I suffer horrifically from PMS and deathly cramping and insane horror movie bleeding.

Screw that. I dont want that for as long as humanly possible.
So it was really really neat and weird that she slept that long or that Steve came up with that as his idea. Very Dad-ly, but I think dads operate in less of a guilt and should world that they come up with awesome stuff. (Lots of hollywood images come to mind of Mr. Moms drying babies' bums with blow dryers and other creative/funny stuff...)

If im ever dying for some deep sleep Ill try that again.