Sleeping like a baby (night one)

On the advice of an anonymous commenter on my previous swaddling post (thanks!), The Husband and I decided to take the plunge and try to go without the Miracle Blanket for this weekend. If we were going to get little sleep because of her fussing, we reasoned, then we might as well do it while we have a long weekend and don't have to go to work the next day.

So, a little excited about the task at hand yet a little terrified at a return to multiple overnight rendezvous, we set out to transition Baby B out of the swaddle.

We went through our normal bedtime routine and put her down in her crib drowsy but awake. After making noise for about 20 or 30 minutes, she finally got herself to sleep around 8:40 p.m. with occasional comforting from The Husband. (I try not to be the one to comfort her at bedtime because of the possibility of her smelling me and wanting to eat even when she's not hungry.) About once an hour after that, she'd fuss enough that we felt we needed to go in there, but it was enough to enter silently and put the pacifier in her mouth and turn on the crib aquarium again. She slept straight from 2 a.m. until 7:15 a.m. with just one short fussy spell (just 15 or 20 seconds) that we didn't have to tend to because she calmed herself down. Never at any point did we need to pick her up and calm her down. We changed her diaper and brought her to bed with us for her 7:30 feeding, then we all slept until about 11 a.m.

I know we're not in the clear yet, but I'd call it a successful first night without the swaddle. It definitely went better than I anticipated (I envisioned being awake from 3 to 6 a.m. desperately trying all the tricks to get her back to sleep), so I'm feeling good about entering night #2 tonight. I'll post an update tomorrow.