We are currently working Elizabeth Pantley's "No Cry Sleep Solution." And, with the exception of the setbacks endured through the Junior Miss' present cold, it seems to be working! And thank god, because if it wasn't, I'd be seeing divorce in my future. The pressure of a new baby on a marriage is way bigger than I could have anticipated, though I had been forewarned. Basically, even the best husband and father can not offer enough help, at least to a breast fed baby. But also, we were having NO time alone together. (Which I guess is a good birth control method...)

So while, our beloved ped says a 10:30 bed time is fine for her, we needed to move it earlier. So we have started a bedtime routine: bath, lotion, massage, books, nursing, back rub, sleep! Now, we aim to get this whole process down to an hour, but currently it stretches to two and the last three steps get repeated at least once most nights! The idea is to put baby down sleepy, but awake, which is what we are working on. It definitely happens with naptime, but sometimes Miss E falls asleep during the nursing, which means she gets upset when she wakes up, titless.

Still the last three nights she's been asleep by nine! And now that I figured out elevating the head of her mattress to avoid snotty nose pooling which leads to snorting and crying and waking, we actually got five hours straight snoozing again last night. (She was sleeping through, but between teething and her cold, that stopped last week.) Bill and I even got to be quietly amorous, on the couch, like teenagers afraid to wake a parent.