My Realization

This morning, after a very, very long night, I came to a horrible, painful realization that I have yet to share with anyone.

I want my daughter to wake up at night.

I know.  I KNOW.  How insane am I???

Baby Girl was up last night at 10:30, 11:30, 12:30, and 3:30 (I think...based off of conversation with The Hubby...neither of us has a real clear view of what happened last night).  At 10:30, The Hubby got her back to sleep.  At 11:30, he tried again, but came into our bedroom and essentially threw her at me.  I was upset.  She crawled around, whined, fussed, and he covered his head with his pillow.  I thought about holding it over his mouth, but decided it would be easier to just deal with the baby. 

I took her into her bedroom and rocked.  And rocked.  And she'd fall asleep, then wake up as soon as I started to put her into her crib.  I let her cry for a couple of minutes while I found her seahorse.  I had actually discovered about a week ago that she loves that thing and isn't distracted by it anymore.  I turned on the music (left the seahorse in her crib) and sat and rocked and she settled down.  Just as I was putting her back in her crib, the seahorse turned off and she got up on her hip and looked at me.  Damn.  I turned on the seahorse and she immediately laid down and went to sleep.  Whew.  I went back to bed and sat and listened for about 5 minutes until the seahorse turned off to see if she'd wake up.  She didn't.  At that point.

An hour later (an hour after she'd woken previously, that is), though, she was awake again (I think this part happened...surely I couldn't have dreamed it, right???).  She was yelling and screaming from her crib.  I just listened.  I couldn't do it again.  And The Hubby didn't move.  He's usually the one to get her, but he wasn't moving.  So I laid there, staring at the TV.  She'd stop crying, notice that she didn't hear noise outside her door, and start screaming again.  I think she cried for between 5 and 10 minutes and then it stopped.  Yes, I was scared that something had happened, but was so exhausted that I just assumed she had fallen asleep and I went to sleep myself. 

At 3:30 she was up again.  At this point, I fed her.  The typical rule we try to follow is that if she's up before 1:00, she doesn't get fed because there's no way she's hungry.  If she wakes up after that, I'll feed her and she'll typically fall asleep nursing and then go back to her bed.  It works for us and that's just what happened last night.  She slept for the rest of the night.

So on the way into work this morning The Hubby and I were discussing the fact that I let her cry until she fell asleep.  He didn't even remember it.  So then we were trying to decide if we need to do that every time she gets up. 

That's when it happened. 

I realized that I didn't want to cut out all of her nighttime wakings. 

There was a time when she was waking one time around 2 or 2:30, eating, and sleeping the rest of the night.  And I liked that.  I could spend a little time with her, snuggle, she could eat, thereby helping my milk supply, and she'd go back to bed.  I was okay with it and could keep doing that for awhile.

But I can't keep doing this.  I can't keep dealing with her waking FOUR times in a night.  And The Hubby is probably right--if we go get her some of the time (after the designated time), she won't understand and that probably won't keep her from waking up fully the other times.  So it seems it's all or nothing and it's time to make a decision. 

I'm sad.  And scared.  I don't want to negatively effect my already waning milk supply by her not eating overnight.  I don't want to miss out on my snuggle time, especially since I spend about 3 hours with her on weekdays, with an hour of that being in the car and another hour (almost) being feeding her.  I don't want her to stop needing her mommy in the middle of the night. 

How sick and twisted is that?  If she sleeps, we all sleep.  And we'll all be better people when we wake up in the morning.  And she might (!!!) even stay up longer in the evenings and nap better during the day.  I know it's a normal part of life, to be able to sleep through the night, but I don't know if I'm ready to let go.