Deep Slumber

Robin and I are slowly but surely learning this whole parenthood thing. Our most recent realization is the importance of the bedtime routine. Because I bear the brunt of awake time during the night for Lydia's nursing, Robin has been taking the responsibility of putting her to sleep when we go to bed. While newborns don't establish habits until they are a bit older than Lydia is, we realized that we were hyping her up and then expecting her to go right to sleep. It was taking around two hours to get her to mellow out and go to bed.

Introduce the bedtime routine! For the past two nights, we have given her a bath (Note: We can now give her a "real" bath with a tub of water, since her cord finally fell off today!), Robin has read her a book (I'm an English teacher; I can't help it but push to introduce books immediately!), and I feed her. I then pass her back to Robin, who rocks her to sleep. This has drastically reduced her falling asleep time AND seems to have helped her sleep for a longer period of time (4-5 hours in the first stretch as opposed to 2-3). I'm sure that just writing this will mean that she will be up all night tonight, but thankfully, Robin and I are both feeling somewhat rested after the past two nights.